Every Time My Heart Beats
by JaneAus10
Summary: How Lee and Kara met and what happened prior to the Miniseries. COMPLETE. Image: La Belle Dame Sans Merci c1893 John William Waterhouse.
1. Unwelcome Orders

Title: **Every Time My Heart Beats**

Rating: T

Genre: romance/angst

Warnings: mild language (all chapters)

Spoilers: None

Characters: Lee/Kara, BSG ensemble, others of author's invention

Time period: Beginning on the eve of the _Galactica's_ decommissioning and flashing back to Lee and Kara's meeting at the Academy and forward

Disclaimers: Ronald D Moore owns all BSG characters; I have just borrowed them. The other characters are mine.

Dedication: To all the wonderful Lee/Kara shippers everywhere

Summary: How Lee and Kara met and what happened prior to the Miniseries

Author's Note: Very little is canon, but I think it could have happened this way

Author's Note 2: This story was written during late 2007 and early 2008 before Ron Moore retconned Kara and Lee's first meeting that ended in their infamous drunken tabletop/pigeon/broom encounter from which they were apparently never able to recover. I have chosen not to alter my story to fit the retcon so it stands as originally written.

.

Chapter 1

Unwelcome Orders

Captain Lee Adama signed his name on the post-flight checklist, handed the clipboard back to the young crewman and nodded curtly in reply to her soft _Thank you, sir. _He was aware of the interest in her eyes. He had seen it before, other times, other places on the battlestar, but now as he had done then, he ignored it. She was attractive and appealing on several levels, but she was enlisted crew, and fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel was against regulations. If there was one thing that he could say about himself, it was that he lived his life by the rules, the regulations and the laws.

Even if the fraternization regulation had not existed however, he would not have pursued a relationship with her. Three months earlier he had given his girlfriend Gianne an engagement ring. It was either that or another emotionally draining breakup, and at the time getting engaged seemed to be the easier of the two alternatives.

She still had the ring, but four weeks ago she had broken up with him anyway in a tearful and emotional scene that made him wince every time he thought about it. He was still dealing with the aftermath of that scene, and her news that he was going to become a father. The last thing he needed was another woman in his life. He couldn't even deal with the one he had.

Maybe it was those pregnancy hormones that had caused Gianne's emotional outburst. Maybe it was his reaction to the news. And maybe it was because Gianne knew she wasn't and never would be the woman in Lee Adama's heart. Probably it was all three.

He forced his thoughts back to the present. He was at the end of a five-day duty rotation and was now looking forward to forty-eight hours off. His first priority was a hot shower and his second was some serious rack time.

After ten months spent completing War College on Picon, he had been back on the _Atlantia_ for barely a month, and was having trouble adjusting once again to life on a battlestar. He took a deep breath, relishing how good that hot shower was going to feel, and afterward the fresh, clean sheets of his bunk.

"Apollo, sir, hold up a minute." Lee looked around to see the Crew Chief hurrying across the hangar deck. He stopped briefly to speak to the two crewmen working on Lee's Viper. "Start prepping this bird for a long-range flight. You heard me right. To Caprica."

Then he turned to Lee. "CAG wants to see you, sir. He called down while you were landing. I let him know you'd be delayed a few minutes for post-flight." He turned to go and then turned back around. "He said to tell you not to worry. It's good news this time."

Lee nodded his thanks and finally exhaled the breath he had been holding. _Good news this time._ Getting called to the CAG's office from the hangar deck had never been good news for him, starting with the time two years ago when it had been to tell him of Zak's death in a training accident.

Zak. Even now his death could still pierce Lee's heart with razor-sharp pain. How long did it take to get over the loss of a brother? Would he ever get over the loss of his brother? Thoughts of Zak were always quickly followed by thoughts of Kara. Would he ever get over losing her either? Not to death as he'd lost Zak, but to his own blind pride, and his jealous stupidity plus his arrogant assumption that Kara could forget what they had once been to each other. He looked up. He was outside the CAG's office.

"Come in, Captain, have a seat." The CAG gestured to one of the two chairs in front of his desk. "Crew Chief Banks told you it wasn't bad news, I hope."

"Yes, sir. It still had me going for a minute."

"I understand." He picked up several sheets of paper from his desk. "Congratulations. You've been selected to lead the flyover team at _Galactica's_ decommissioning ceremony day after tomorrow. That's quite an honor, Lee."

"I've been…what, sir?"

"This comes straight from Admiral Nagala's office. Probably his PR people. You've got to admit it's good. Your father's ship. Son leads the flyover team. Somebody's on the ball down there."

"I'd like to decline, sir."

The CAG looked surprised. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. These are orders, not an invitation. Why would you even want to decline? As I said, it's an honor. It will look very good on your record."

"I've got my reasons."

The CAG waited. "Not good enough, I'm afraid," he finally said.

Lee made another attempt. "My father…we argued about…" Lee took a breath and blew it quickly out. "He and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. When I was growing up he wasn't there much…and then there's the issue of how he pushed my brother into being a Viper pilot and got him killed. I don't want to…It's just that I'd rather not be part of…" his voice trailed off as he realized that he sounded like a whiney kid.

"So you're speaking of personal issues."

"Mostly…yes, sir…personal issues."

Lee heard an edge of irritation in the CAG's voice. "I can't help you there. Your father has one of the finest records in the service. You of all people should realize that you don't rise through the ranks to command a battlestar without dedication and without sacrifices…on many fronts. I understand what a lot of those sacrifices are. I have a wife and son back on Gemenon. You probably feel that you paid a price for his career with all the absences."

"And my mother," Lee blurted. "And my brother. We all paid a price."

"And you think he didn't? I'm sorry, Captain. Whatever your personal feelings are, you're going to have to put them aside and obey these orders." Then his voice softened. "It's one day, Lee. Not even a whole day. Just a couple of hours. What's that out of a lifetime? Nothing. Right? You go in, lead the flyover, and you're out. That's it. You've been given a leave day on either side of the assignment. Plenty of time to see that girlfriend on Caprica."

Lee accepted defeat and rose. "Yes, sir." He reached out and took the orders packet that the CAG handed him. "I'll do my best."

"I know you will, Lee. You always do your best. See you in four days. Good flying."

...

On Caprica the next morning Lee called his mother and arranged to meet her for lunch at her favorite restaurant in the city. Their relationship had changed for the better during the past five or six years and especially in the two years since Zak's death. Before that was a different story. During his youth and adolescence, his mother had often drunk too much and had taken out her loneliness and bitterness on him.

Her abuse was mostly verbal and only rarely physical, but there were times Lee would have preferred blows to the emotional devastation her words wreaked. Most of the time she would cry afterward, beg him to forgive her and promise him she was never going to do it again. And she wouldn't. Until the next time.

It didn't happen every day, or even every week. Sometimes there were long stretches, months even when she was just his mother. The one who took him to ball practices, bandaged his scrapes, and read his spelling words to him so he could practice. During the times that his father was home, peace usually reigned. At least then, if she lashed out at anyone, it was at her husband and not at her son. But once his father left, it usually wasn't long before something would set her off, and Lee's life would become hell once again.

He got good at recognizing some of her triggers. It could be as insignificant as a particular song playing on the radio, or as important as a call from his father saying he wasn't going to make it home for a birthday or an anniversary. But there were other times when Lee had no idea what had triggered her dark rage, and by the time he realized what was happening, there was nothing he could do or say that would stop her from taking that first drink or the next one or the next. The few times she had actually hit him were the times he had tried to take the bottle away from her.

He got good, too, at getting Zak out of her way, but for reasons Lee never fully understood, his mother never went after Zak the way she did him. Maybe because it would have been easier to kick a puppy than it would have been to unleash those brutal words on Zak. Zak who had such trusting brown eyes and who was so gentle and open with his affection. Zak who would creep into her room when she was drunk and crying and pat her shoulder with his chubby little hand. Zak who could say, "Don't cry. I love you Mommy," the way Lee never could. Zak, who wasn't the reason she had to marry Bill Adama.

Sometime during his years at the Academy, he had begun to realize the part his father had played in his mother's drinking and her pain and her bitter rages. His understanding started when he took the introductory Psychology course that was required for all students. It continued as he heard others talk about their own childhoods with absent fathers or mothers who had put a military career ahead of being there for spouses and children. And finally Lee understood that the man he had loved and idolized his entire life had not cared enough to see what was happening to all of them or worse yet, had seen it but chose to ignore it.

The year Lee had graduated from the Academy, however, his mother had met Dr. Henry Rollins, curator of Caprica's Natural History Museum, a gentle, soft-spoken man who had gotten her into a program for alcoholics and helped her get treatment for the bouts of depression that had plagued her all of her life. The result was almost like a miracle. A year later his mother had written him a six-page letter that he still had tucked away in the bottom of his locker. In it she admitted her problems, told him of her demons, and begged his forgiveness. That letter was the turning point at which she gradually became his mother again.

Zak's death had been the event that had cemented their new relationship. She had turned to him for support, and when he looked into her eyes and saw his own pain reflected there, he had finally been able to forgive her and put the worst of the past behind him. She was his mother, after all, and though he was rarely able to say it, he did love her.

...

When his mother arrived at the restaurant, she was beaming and wasted no time in holding out her hand. The ring was beautiful. A center stone that sparkled with the brilliance of a white star, and on either side, blue stones the color of the sky at twilight.

"It's about time," he grinned. "I'm surprised Henry waited this long."

"Oh, he asked me a few months after Zak…" His mother bowed her head and took a deep breath. When she looked up at him, there were tears forming in her eyes. "But I wasn't ready then. Henry said the center stone is for me, for us, but the side ones, they're you and Zak…the family he's becoming part of. I know Zak's gone, but…." The tears spilled over and she hastily wiped her eyes. "Zak is still in my heart, and Henry knows how much both you boys mean to me. I look at my ring and see our family."

"So when's the wedding?"

"We haven't set a date yet, but I'll let you know in plenty of time so you can be here. Henry wanted to ask you to stand up with him as best man, but I told him you were going to have to walk me down the aisle. Oh, how was I ever lucky enough to find Henry?"

"Because you deserve happiness," Lee answered her. "After years of…of Dad, you deserve someone attentive and kind like Henry. Someone who's there for you."

His mother reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "Yes, Henry is good for me, good to me, but you're far too hard on your father. All my time with him wasn't bad. We had some wonderful times together. And we had you and Zak. For my sake won't you please forgive him for everything you've blamed him for and try to put your differences behind you?"

Lee looked out over the restaurant. "The last ten or twenty times we've talked about this we've gotten nowhere. Let's talk about something else."

"He loves you, Lee. I know because…"

"Drop it, Mother. Please."

"I was going to say because I talked to him. We had a long talk, some months ago, maybe nearly a year. We…things are all right now between us. It wasn't all his fault, you know. When you were younger, I was drinking and miserable and lonely…"

"Which was his fault. Stop making excuses for him. But the worst is what he did to Zak."

"No, Lee. That's one of the things I've come to realize. I made choices. Zak made choices, too. Yes, Bill thought Zak should be in the military, but he didn't force him. Zak made that decision on his own, in part because he idolized you so much and that was the path you chose. Please, promise me tomorrow when you see Bill you won't…be so hard on him. He loves you and he loved Zak. He's so proud of you. Of what you've accomplished…" she stopped. "Oh, don't look at me like that."

"What do you expect me to say? You know how I feel."

"And you know how I feel. Be kind to your father tomorrow. Please say you'll at least give him a chance. Lee…Lee, are you listening to me?"

He wasn't. The pianist seated across the restaurant had begun playing a hauntingly beautiful melody that took his breath away. Six years vanished, and Lee was at his senior-year Academy dance, outside in the dark on the terrace, moving slowly to the music with Kara in his arms. The poignancy of that memory was so sharp it hurt. He took another deep breath trying to control it.

"Lee, you aren't paying a bit of attention to me, are you?"

"Sorry, Mother. I was listening to that song. It…reminds me of Kara. She told me once that her father used to play it for her when she was a little girl. It's called _Every Time My Heart Beats_."

"Yes, it is pretty, isn't it? I'm glad you mentioned Kara. I saw her several weeks ago. She was back here for a few days leave with that friend of hers, oh, what's his name? The tall one. His sister was getting married."

"Karl Agathon?"

"Yes. That's him. I met them for lunch one day. Right here in this restaurant as a matter of fact. We sat outside even though it was too warm for me. They both wanted to sit in the sun. I remember when Bill was home how much he liked to sit out by the pond."

"Sunshine is in short supply on a battlestar."

"I was sorry Henry couldn't be here, but he was on a trip to Virgon to look at some artifacts the museum wanted to acquire. You know how fond Henry is of Kara. And she of him. I joke sometimes to Henry that we should adopt Kara. I think she needs a father and mother. Henry told me we should consult you before we go acquiring a sister for you."

Lee choked and spewed the sip of water he had just taken down the front of his uniform. "Gods damn it!" he cursed as he began blotting himself with his napkin.

"Lee, watch your language."

"Sorry, Mother," he said. "How is Kara?"

"She looks good, but she seems…I don't know exactly…changed somehow. Harder, maybe. Not quite the Kara I remember. There's a toughness, an edge to her now that bothers me."

"I'm sure losing Zak affected her."

"I'm sure, but still…" His mother frowned and shook her head gently. "There's something else. I felt it, but I don't have a clue what it is. Several times when we were talking she couldn't look at me. Almost like she feels guilty about something. I can't imagine what. Zak's accident wasn't her fault. It was just that…an accident. She knows I don't blame her. What could be bothering Kara? Do you have any idea?"

"I think you're way off base about the guilt thing." Lee forced himself to look at his mother. "_Kara's_ got nothing to feel guilty about. If anybody should be feeling guilty, it's me."

"You? Why?"

"For not doing more to stop Zak from trying to become a Viper pilot. For…for a lot of things."

"Lee, becoming a pilot was Zak's choice. Kara said she hadn't heard from you since the funeral. It's been two years. Is there a reason you haven't contacted her?"

He'd written her one brief letter and she'd answered him, but he hadn't made an attempt to see her and really talk to her like he should have done, like he'd promised her in the letter he would do.

"There's a reason. I was afraid getting in touch with her would be too much of a reminder of what happened." It wasn't the only reason, but it was the only one he could tell his mother.

"What happened? I know I went to bed early that night, and left the rest of you handling the wake, but I was so tired and distraught, and I'd taken those pills the doctor gave me. Did you and Kara have some sort of falling out or argument?"

"That night…no…nothing like that…I meant what happened with Zak." Lee answered hastily, again forcing himself to look at his mother. "I was afraid seeing me would just keep reminding her of Zak. Of her loss."

"I'm glad you two didn't argue. I know you didn't approve of Zak seeing her so when you said…well, I was afraid maybe you had said something to that effect to her."

"Look, Mother," Lee started hotly and then softened the tone of his voice. "It's not that I didn't approve of Zak seeing Kara. I just thought they were moving too fast. I mean they'd only known each other a couple of months and they were already planning to get married."

"Bill and I only knew each other a few months before we got married."

"Yeah, and we both know how that turned out."

Lee saw a flash of pain in her eyes and then she mastered her emotions. She lifted her chin. "I don't suppose I can blame you for being cruel. I taught you well, didn't I?"

Lee looked down. "I'm sorry."

"Kara asked about you."

"She was just being polite."

"I told her that you were fine. That you had finished War College on Picon and were back on the _Atlantia_. But she seemed to know that already. I also told her you were engaged to a nice girl here on Caprica."

"Oh, great. I'm sure she's interested in my love life."

"Interested enough to ask me if it was the bartender, and I told her no, that Gianne was a teacher's assistant at a private school. It wasn't until I was on my way home that I remembered you told me Gianne once tended bar at the Caprican Hills Hotel. That must have been years ago."

Lee nodded. "While I was at the Academy…while Kara and I were there. You know Gianne's father owns that hotel and eight or ten like it."

"Yes, I know. I told Kara I'd like to see you and Gianne set a date and get married."

Lee rolled his eyes upward. "I'll bet she got a good laugh out of that."

"Actually she did. She looked at her friend Karl and said, 'Can you see Apollo walking down the aisle with a school teacher?' Or something like that and they both laughed. Then she very seriously said Gianne wouldn't have an easy life married to a pilot. She said _'married to Lee'_, but I'm sure she meant married to a pilot. She was polite enough not to say _but you already know that having once been married to a pilot yourself._ She was thinking it, though, I know she was."

"She's right. I would make Gianne a lousy husband. I'd make anybody a lousy husband. It's not something I want to do in the near future. Marriage, that is."

"So you're telling me I won't be getting grandchildren any time soon," his mother said lightly. "I guess if you aren't ready to marry Gianne then you aren't…what's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? Lee, are you all right?"

"Gianne's pregnant."

"Oh, Lee. Why didn't you tell me?"

"She broke up with me."

"When?"

"Four weeks ago, right before I went back to the _Atlantia _I saw her, and when she told me I said the wrong thing."

"Which was?"

"I asked her if she was sure."

"Bill asked me the same thing when I told him I was pregnant with you. I didn't break up with him because of it. Tell me what happened."

"She started crying and accused me of not loving her and not wanting the baby. She said I probably thought she'd done it on purpose to trap me into marrying her. And when I didn't deny it, she accused me of being in love with…" Lee stopped. He'd almost gone too far. "…of being in love with somebody else and just using her for sex."

"Is there any truth to that accusation?"

Lee shrugged and made the mistake of looking at his mother.

"It's Kara, isn't it?" She asked in one of those intuitive leaps that only his mother could have made.

"What?"

"Kara is the reason you can't totally commit to Gianne, isn't she? Do you think I'm blind? Do you think I didn't notice you two that night at dinner when Zak told you they were getting married?" When he didn't answer, she said, "Oh, Lee."

"I'm going to tell you like I told Zak. Nothing ever happened with Kara and me while we were at the Academy. Kara looks at me only as a friend...if even that much now. Yes, I had a crush on her a long time ago. Yes, I still think about her sometime, but you've got to understand. Kara loved Zak. Kara never cared about me that way and she never will."

"But your feelings for her are keeping you from committing to Gianne?"

"It's not just that. Gianne and I have been on and off for what, eight or nine years now. I gave her the ring three months ago because we were getting ready to break up again if I didn't. I was trying to finish War College and I just wasn't sure I could go through another…It's not that I don't care about her. I do. She's just not the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with."

"Well, that doesn't matter now. A child is involved. How did you leave things?"

"She told me to get out of her life. She left me standing at the Plaza and ran off."

"And you let her? Are you telling me you haven't talked to her in four weeks?"

Lee looked down and shook his head.

"Lee, you can't leave things like that. She didn't make this baby by herself. You're going to be a father. I don't care how you feel or don't feel. There's a child on the way. Your child. You've got to do the right thing."

"The right thing. What the frak is the _right thing_? If I thought I wouldn't be any better father than the one I had, I'd just shoot myself and spare Gianne and my child the misery. That would be the _right thing_."

"Lee!"

"Sorry. I didn't mean that."

"Whether you marry her or not, you will support your child. You've got to make Gianne understand that you will take responsibility for your child."

"She's rich, Mother. Offering her money would just insult her."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I mean emotional support. Being involved in your child's life. Being a _father_ to your son or daughter."

"All right. I'll call her day after tomorrow when I get back from the _Galactica_. She may not even talk to me, but if she will, I'll try to work out how I'm going to do that. Happy now?"

"Just make sure I get to see my grandchild." His mother smiled. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Henry. I'm going to be a grandmother. We're going to be grandparents."

TBC…

**Author's Note: **The subject of his mother's abuse of Lee has been the topic of much speculation among shippers, and while I agree that abuse happened as per Lee's comment to his father in ADITL, there are other scenes that show that by the time of Zak's death, Lee and his mother had reconciled. In AOC, he is shown with his arm around her at Zak's funeral, and in the Miniseries, part 2, his eyes fill with tears as he looks at her picture in his father's quarters. I don't think his mother's abuse made Lee an introvert or ruined his ability to deal with his feelings. I think he is just naturally rather introverted, an academic overachiever, a thinker who tends often to overanalyze his feelings, and that while made worse by the verbal and emotional abuse he suffered growing up, it was not the sole reason for his problems in those areas as an adult.


	2. Surprise Meeting

Chapter 2

Surprise Meeting

Lee Adama sat alone at a small table in the Officer's Club at the Caprica Airbase and pushed an empty glass around in small circles. He wasn't drunk, but he wasn't sober, either. For the last two hours as dusk and then darkness had descended over the base, he had sat at the same table, ordered a number of drinks, and watched the ships take off and land. There were fewer Vipers and Raptors now and more large transports. And there was more activity on the far side of the base where the cargo terminals were.

Tomorrow morning he would take a small transport out to the hangar where his Viper was waiting, and he would obey orders. Go to _Galactica_, lead the flyover team during the decommissioning ceremony and then return to the base. With a little luck he could be sitting right here in twenty-four hours having a drink. Maybe by then he would figure out what he was going to say to Gianne. He'd promised his mother today at lunch that he would call her, and he intended to honor his promise.

More important to him right now though was what he was going to say to Kara tomorrow. "Hi, Kara. We were friends once, is there any chance we can be friends again?" Probably too abrupt. Or what about, "Hi, Kara. I know the last time we saw each other we both said some things and did some things we shouldn't have. I was hoping we could put it behind us and start over." Frak. He probably shouldn't bring that up at all. What about the truth, then? What about, "Hi, Kara. I know I haven't called or written, but I have missed you." No, she wouldn't believe him. Maybe it would be better if he just said, "Hi, Kara. How are you?" That was probably best. Just greet her and see how she reacted. Take his cue from her.

Besides, the first time he saw her they would probably be in the pilots' ready room, and he would have to be careful what he said. They wouldn't be alone which was probably best. At least he wouldn't be tempted to do something stupid like try to hug her. That would probably get her fist across his jaw.

He picked up his empty glass. He could manage one more drink tonight. He was flying tomorrow, but he could still handle one more. He looked around for the waiter, and not seeing him, Lee got up and made his way to the bar where he got a double.

"Lee Adama, son of a gun. How are you?"

Lee looked around to see who had called his name and spotted an Academy classmate. He took his drink and walked over to the table. "Lincoln Tevers. Oh, ho, _Captain_ Lincoln Tevers. Congratulations."

"Ditto, _Captain_ Lee Adama. Join me, won't you? So what are you doing here?"

Lee sat down. "Heading to _Galactica_ tomorrow for the decommissioning ceremony. And you?"

"Babysitting."

Lee raised an eyebrow. "Babysitting?"

"Yeah, Admiral Nagala's youngest son starts Flight School here next week. I've been assigned to show him the ropes, introduce him around, mostly keep him out of trouble. He's a pistol, that boy is."

"So where is he?"

"Trying to pick up that hot-looking pilot. He told me if I saw them leave together not to come looking for him." Tevers inclined his head toward the far end of bar.

Lee followed the gesture and saw a tall, good-looking young lieutenant chatting with a very attractive brunette. At that moment the woman looked up and Lee caught her eye. She smiled and he returned it. He knew her. He had served with her for several months during his first year on the _Atlantia._ Her name was…was…oh, frak. He couldn't remember her name.

She picked up her drink and walked over to their table with young Nagala at her heels. "Lee Adama. Remember me? We served together on the _Atlantia _a few years back_._"

"Sure. I remember you. I just don't remember your name," he admitted sheepishly.

"Margaret Edmondson. My friends call me Maggie. Other pilots call me Racetrack."

"Right, right. Racetrack. Raptor pilot. So what brings you to Caprica?"

"Picking up two administrative types. Something to do with the gift shop they're opening in the starboard launch bay. I'm taking them back to the _Galactica _tomorrow morning. What about you?"

Lee went through his story again. "Would you like to join us?"

"Sure," she sat and Lee introduced her to Tevers. Tevers in turn introduced him to Jace Nagala who had already pulled his chair close to Racetrack's.

"So how long have you been on _Galactica?_" Lee asked.

"A couple of years now. Your father is the best commander I've ever served under. I'm not in love with his XO, but the CAG is all right and your dad is great."

Lee nodded. He was definitely glad he had gotten another drink.

Racetrack continued. "You have a couple of friends on _Galactica, _too. Karl Agathon and Kara Thrace. They've both mentioned your name.

"I'll bet it was in the same sentence with some colorful profanity. Kara, anyway."

Apparently anxious to join the conversation, Nagala said, "Would that be the same Kara Thrace who's perfect sim scores are on a plaque at the Academy? The same one Colonel Burgher talks about like she's the god of Vipers or something."

"I don't know about the plaque, but I can tell you Kara's sure _Galactica's_ Top Gun," Racetrack said.

Tevers answered him. "Yeah, Nagala, that's her. We were all at the Academy together. Me and Lee and Kara. In fact Lee, here is well acquainted with our hotshot Viper pilot. He took her to our senior dance."

_How the frak had Tevers remembered that?_

Lee answered casually, "She and I ended up without dates. It was a last minute thing. We went as friends. That's all."

"Yeah, I hear you. That why Colonel Winters ran you back inside? Just two _friends_ out there on the terrace in the dark _talking_, right?"

Lee felt his ears start to burn. _Damn. Was there a camera on them that night?_

"Actually we _were_ just out there talking. Outside was the only place you could hear. The band was too loud. And Colonel Winters didn't run us back inside. We finished our cups of punch and came back inside so we could dance."

Well mostly we were talking. We did dance to one song out there in the dark, a long slow song called _Every Time My Heart Beats_, and afterward I kissed her. And Kara kissed me back. Oh, yeah, she kissed me back. Flying Vipers wasn't the only thing Kara Thrace did well. She was a hell of a good kisser. Almost seven years and he still remembered that kiss, and tonight the alcohol made it that much easier to remember how it had felt. How warm her lips and tongue were and how soft and the way she hadn't held anything back. That was what got to him the most. The way she hadn't held anything back. Lee shifted in his chair. Frak, he couldn't start thinking about that kiss right now. Not unless he wanted to risk embarrassing himself.

"Sure," Tevers said. "I hear you. Just out there talking and drinking punch. For nearly an hour."

He glanced over at Tevers just in time to see him wink at Racetrack and Racetrack grin and raise her eyebrows in reply. They both knew what happened outside at Academy dances. _Damn Tevers and his big mouth._ The burn began to spread to Lee's cheeks. The last thing he wanted was Racetrack going back to _Galactica_ and saying something to Kara. That would not be good.

"Look, it wasn't like that with me and Kara. Like I just said, we're only friends."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Want to know why I was watching you two?"

Lee sipped his drink again. "Do I have a choice?"

"Just thought you'd like to know."

"So shoot."

"Well, first I guess I'd better admit that I had a thing for her back in those days so I guess you could say I was a jealous. I asked Kara to the dance a couple of weeks before. She turned me down flat. Said dances weren't her thing. Then I see you two come walking across the dance floor, get a cup of punch and head outside. Guess you changed her mind. I thought it was kind of weird that she was in her uniform instead of a dress, but hey, whatever. It didn't look like it was bothering you too much."

Lee drew a breath and blew it out. There was a reason Kara had been wearing her uniform, but it was none of their damned business. "I told you that she and I…frak, just forget it."

"Hey, no hard feelings. Ancient history. The better man got her." Tevers chuckled.

"Look, Tevers," Lee's voice reflected the fact that he was on the verge of losing his temper. "Let's get one thing straight. Nobody _got_ Kara Thrace."

Tevers was grinning. "Yeah, yeah. You know I got over my little crush. You _still_ have a thing for her, don't you? Hey, Racetrack, who's Kara's boyfriend on _Galactica_? I'll bet Lee here would like to know who the competition is. Anybody we know?"

"She doesn't have a boyfriend on _Galactica_ or anywhere else that I know of. She's pretty much a loner except for her buddy Helo. They grew up together or something. Before she came on board _Galactica_ she…"

"Well, damn, Lee," Tevers interrupted her. "Your romance must be more serious than I thought. It sounds like Kara's saving herself for you."

"What I was trying to tell you before you interrupted me," Racetrack said to Tevers with irritation in her voice, "is that just before she came on board _Galactica,_ Kara lost her fiancé in a training accident. He was Lee's brother."

That finally stopped Tevers.

"No kidding. Sorry, man, I'm sorry. I hope you know I didn't mean anything by…I was just kidding with you."

Lee tossed back the rest of his drink. He would like to have stayed longer and talked to Racetrack, but he'd had as much of Tevers as he could take.

"I've got an early call tomorrow. The next round's on me." He stood and pulled several drink credits from his pocket and put them on the table. "Enjoy. Nice meeting you, Nagala. Good seeing you again, Racetrack. Good flight back tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you on the _Galactica._"

"Sure thing, Apollo. Good flight to you too. I look forward to seeing you lead the flyover team. I'm sure Starbuck is on it. If you weren't leading the team, she probably would be. Like I said. She's the _G's_ Top Gun."

"I'm not leading the team because I volunteered. It was some PR guy's idea."

"PR guys. Don't you just love them? Hey, ditto on the good flight." Tevers gave him a thumb's up. "Give my regards to Kara. You know I saw her fly those sims at the Academy. Well, the last two of the three. It was one of the most awesome things I've ever seen."

Lee managed to walk out of the Officer's Club without any hint that the whiskey was affecting him, but by the time he got to his room, he was really feeling that last drink. Not quite drunk, but way past sober.

He took off his uniform, hung it carefully in the small closet and lay on the bed. Kara Thrace. Tomorrow he would see her for the first time in almost two years. Since Zak's funeral. No, more specifically since the night of Zak's funeral. What had happened that night had haunted him ever since. How many times had he thought about it? Thought about her?

Tevers was a bigmouth, but he had been right about one thing. Lee Adama still had a real thing for Kara Thrace.

The first time he heard her name he was a month into his fourth year at the Academy, the beginning of a year that would see him graduate third in a class of eight hundred eighty-three, and after the Academy, finish first in his Viper class of fifty-four in Flight School.

In the atumn of his senior year, late one afternoon he was in the locker room of the gym after a hard workout, freshly showered and getting dressed when a couple of third-years came in. They were rowdy, shoving each other and laughing.

"Finish telling me about Colonel Burgher," said the sandy-haired cadet. "I would so have given anything to see it."

"I would so give anything to have Colonel Burgher's computer right now so we could play it back," the red-haired guy said. "I heard that at then end of the third sim he couldn't even talk. He tried to say something and it came out kind of a squeak. A couple of times." They all cracked up laughing.

Lee couldn't resist. "What could possibly have reduced Colonel Burgher to squeaking?"

The cadets straightened up. "We heard a third-year aced all three of Burgher's Viper sims today. Went straight through them without a mistake. Got a perfect score."

Lee looked at him with all the skepticism he felt. "Not possible." But three heads were nodding back at him in the affirmative. "You're telling me that a third year cadet smoked the beginner, intermediate and advanced sims? Boom, boom, boom. Just like that?"

"Yes sir, just like that."

Lee was still trying to wrap his brain around the thought that anyone could beat all three Viper simulations, much less one right after the other. "What's this superman's name?

"That would be superwoman's name, sir. Kara Thrace."

"You guys are really funny. Did one of you actually witness this feat?"

"No," the redhead said. "But Jessup and I both heard about it from somebody who did."

Jessup was nodding again. "History was made in that sim room today. It must have been awesome, totally awesome. We heard she got a standing ovation. Everybody was kind of like, frak Burgher and his rule of silence, she deserves it."

"Kara Thrace," Lee said. "Wonder why I haven't heard of her before if she's that good? A hot sim jock gets a name pretty quick."

"Probably because it was her first time in the simulator."

"No way, guys, that's just not possible. No one could beat all of those sims the first time out. I doubt Colonel Burgher could beat all three sims first time out, and he wrote them."

"Well, it happened. Ask Colonel Burgher. I'll bet when he stops squeaking, he'll tell you all about it." They cracked up laughing again. "Uh, we've got to get ready for P.E., sir."

"Sure," Lee went back to his locker. Kara Thrace. High on his list of things to do in the near future was to meet Kara Thrace. He still didn't believe it had happened, but if it had, he wanted to meet someone that good with a stick, even if it was only the stick of a simulator.

TBC…


	3. Stars and Sims

Chapter 3

Stars and Sims

Kara Thrace lay on her back in a bunk in _Galatica's_ brig. Damn Saul Tigh. Damn that alcoholic son of a bitch. Why the frak hadn't he just stayed in his quarters today and drunk himself into a stupor instead of coming into the officer's rec room and joining their card game?

And why the frak did he have to dig her about her call sign? That call sign was _her._ Years ago at the Academy Lee Adama had given her that call sign, but Tigh didn't know that, and she was damned if she would ever let him know it. Her call sign was more than special to her. She _was_ Starbuck.

So she'd decided to dig Tigh about his wife and watch him squirm because she knew that was a really raw spot for him. His wife was a slut who gave it up regularly to whoever. All the pilots knew it, and Kara knew just mentioning her to Tigh was sticking the knife in and twisting it, too. She understood why his spouse was out frakking half the fleet. Her drunk husband probably couldn't get it up to frak her himself.

What was so pathetic was that Tigh still loved her. He still loved that cheating slut no matter how many other men she frakked. How could you love somebody after they treated you like that? Pathetic drunk. Pathetic and weak drunk. Why Commander Adama, put up with him was beyond her. She knew Tigh and the Old Man went way back and had been through stuff together she couldn't even imagine, but damn, there had to be a limit to what he would tolerate from his alcoholic XO.

So maybe she shouldn't have gloated after she put down full colors. Maybe she should have just quietly collected her winnings and gotten the hell out of there. But she hadn't. And he'd turned over the table and scattered the cards _and_ her winnings all over the floor. And she'd slugged him.

And here she was, cooling her engines in the brig. Gods, she hadn't been in the brig since the Academy. Not since the Drunk and Disorderly charge that Tigh just had to remind her of. Again. Well, she had one on him there. It wasn't in her record, but the D&D had originally also included assaulting an officer, one of her instructors. But thanks to Lee Adama, that charge had been dropped. If it hadn't, she wouldn't be here now. She would have been expelled from the Academy and would never had made it to flight school.

She still owed Lee for that. _I'll save your life one day._ That's what she'd told him afterward. No matter what had happened between them since then, she still owed him that promise.

There was another charge of assault in her record though, but she didn't count it. Punching another lieutenant on the _Triton_ who had almost gotten one of their fellow pilots killed was more a badge of honor to her than a black mark in her folder. And she had only spent a couple of hours in the brig before their CAG got to the bottom of what had happened and had her released. The assault charge had stood, though, as had the demerits. But she didn't regret what she had done. Not for a minute.

Half the deck crew had seen her slug Lt. Brindle, and Lee hadn't been around to talk him out of pressing charges.

A troublesome thought suddenly wormed its way into her consciousness. Had she hit Tigh on purpose, knowing she'd be taken off the flyover team for the _Galactica's_ decommissioning ceremony? Had she done it so she wouldn't have to face Lee? Just before the card game started Helo had told her that Lee would be leading the team. Lee was a captain now. Karl had heard it from Lt. Gaeta and Gaeta saw all incoming transmissions so he should know.

It had been two years now, two years this month since she'd seen Lee. Two years since they had buried Zak. Two years since…since that night, but she wasn't going to go there. She had been there way too many times during the last two years and she wasn't going there right now.

She and Lee had known each other longer than two years. They'd known each other since the Academy. She went all the way back to the beginning. Like she'd done a hundred, two hundred, who knew how many hundred times in the last two years. Like she couldn't seem to stop doing no matter how hard she tried.

She could never think about the day she met Lee Adama without thinking about the day before, because that's really when it had all started...the day she flew those frakking sims.

...

She woke up that morning feeling lucky. Before the alarm went off, which she usually never did, and the first thing she saw was the dawn light dancing on the ceiling. Something in the room was reflecting the newly risen sun, and if she squinted her eyes, it looked like stars. A rainbow of stars. And stars were lucky for her.

So when she saw Karl Agathon in the cafeteria at breakfast she asked him to come watch her do the sims. She hadn't planned to ask anyone, but Karl, call sign _Helo_, was her best friend and had been for almost as long as she could remember. He was closer than a brother and she wanted him there. She felt lucky.

She skipped lunch because she was scheduled to be in the sim room at 13:00. Just an energy drink and a granola bar at mid-morning. The last thing she wanted was lunch coming back up because of nerves. She knew there were barf bags handy, but she'd also heard that if you lost it in the simulator's cockpit, Colonel Burgher never let you back in it again. And that didn't fit her plans at all.

Thirteen hundred, she sat in the cockpit. Her case of nerves was gone. Her palms were dry. Her voice was steady. She was almost scary calm.

"Cadet Thrace," Colonel Burgher stood beside the simulator making notes and checkmarks on a clipboard, "when you're ready to begin just press the large green button on your left. The canopy will close, and you'll see the screen counting down from ten. The simulation begins when it reaches zero. If at any time you feel dizzy, sick or claustrophobic or wish to end the sim, you can press the large red button on your right. It will stop the sim and open the canopy immediately. Any questions?"

"No, sir. I'm ready, sir."

The canopy was dark and computerized to display the sim just like the large screen in front of her. All it took was the smallest suspension of her knowledge that she was in a simulator, and she could almost believe that she was in a real Viper, getting ready to launch into space.

The simulator itself was on hydraulics at the bottom of a small amphitheater, and students and instructors were welcome to come and go as long as they did it quietly. One thing Burgher didn't tolerate was anyone, and that meant _anyone_, disturbing one of his students flying a sim. Kara knew that somewhere up there in the darkened seats Helo was watching her. Her best buddy. The guy who always had her back. She felt lucky.

"Very well," Burgher said. "The first sim is approximately eleven minutes in length and will cover take offs and landings on a land base and some basic flight maneuvers. Everything in it we've covered in class. It's pretty much textbook, but remember that any flight, no matter how routine, can hold a surprise or two. When necessary, instructions will be fed through your headset. Follow the instructions even if the textbook would have you make a different call. All right, cadet, you're in control."

Basic textbook. That's what Burgher said. If basic meant having one of your landing skids jam down on takeoff, having another Viper come out of nowhere on a collision course, and having a loose barrel roll across the runway when she was landing. But she managed to stick it over the barrel and still set down for a perfect landing.

Kara barely broke a sweat, and when the sim ended, the canopy slid back automatically. She was grinning when Colonel Burgher walked up with his clipboard. "Very good, cadet. A perfect score. Very rare for a first attempt. You can stop now and schedule the second one for another time or you can continue. I allow several hours because that's usually how long it takes for a cadet to master this first sim. Since you're well under, you can go on."

"Let's go on," Kara said. "What's next?"

"Battlestar launching, bay landing, some space maneuvers. Again basic textbook. We've covered it all in class. Approximately fourteen minutes in length." There was no encouragement or helpful hints from Burgher this time.

"Let's do it then," Kara said.

The second one was harder. Besides the tube launch it included other Vipers, some Raptors, and an asteroid that came out of nowhere. Avoiding it was the closest call she had in the entire sim. There was chatter in her headseat like she might hear in a real training exercise and she had to fly the sim and separate what was pertinent from what wasn't. But she made it through that one, too.

When the canopy slid back, Colonel Burgher wasn't quite as detached as he had been the first time. "That was frankly superb, cadet. I didn't register a single mistake and neither did the computer. Another perfect score. Now, I think you should stop and schedule the third and last sim for another time. It's longer and much tougher."

Kara asked, "Do I have to, sir?"

Burgher was surprised. "No, you don't have to, but I would certainly recommend it."

"I want to go ahead. Can I take a short break and get something to drink?"

"Certainly, but are you _sure_ you don't want to stop today? Reaction time decreases with fatigue and I'm sure you're tired."

"I'm good." She started to tell him that when she was a kid, she had played games in the video arcade for hours against some very tough competition.

Burgher walked away shaking his head. Kara was sure he was thinking, _your funeral._

Karl brought her an energy drink. She stood beside the simulator and took a couple of sips. Burgher had gone back to his computer to set up the last sim. She knew that he changed each of the three sims every time a different cadet flew them. Burgher was a genius at mixing everything up.

Karl said softly to her. "Kara, I don't think anyone's ever gotten through two of these sims at the same time. Why don't you call it a day and schedule the last one for some other time. I can tell you from experience, it's a killer. Real battle stuff. Stuff none of us will ever need. That's when I realized I didn't want to be a Viper pilot."

She turned up the bottle and took one last swallow before she handed it back to him. "Nope. I'm going on. Didn't I tell you I feel lucky today?"

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. How many cadets are up there?" She nodded toward the darkened seats of the amphitheater.

"When you started just me and a few others. Now there must be a couple of dozen with more coming in all the time. Word must be getting around. Not to put any pressure on you or anything. Sure you don't want to reschedule?"

"Nope."

She had gone ahead. Over twenty minutes of the hardest stuff Burgher could throw at her. Battles with Cylon raiders, cockpit emergencies, evading several missiles, taking out others, and at the end, a full combat battlestar landing with a crippled Viper. But she was quicker. She was better. She was lucky.

At the end of the sim, when the canopy slid back, it didn't matter that she couldn't get out of the cockpit by herself, that Karl had to help her out. It didn't matter that almost everything against her skin was soaked in sweat. It didn't matter that Colonel Burgher tried several times to say something and it kept coming out in a squeak. What mattered was that she had done it, flown them all. Boom, boom, boom. Just like she'd done in the video arcarde. A perfect score. An Academy record. She was lucky. And maybe, just maybe, she was really that good.

From somewhere in the darkened amphitheater someone started clapping, and then another and another. And then the spectators were on their feet, defying Burgher's rule of strict silence. They were whistling and stomping and cheering her for all they were worth. From the sound pouring over her, Kara guessed there was a full house in the small amphitheater. Standing room only, Helo told her later.

Though she couldn't see them up there in the dark, Kara turned and saluted them, gave them a thumb's up and suddenly found herself choking back tears. Kara Thrace never cried at anything and she was almost undone by the show of support her fellow cadets were giving her. Yeah, it had really been her lucky day.

TBC…


	4. Introduce Me

Chapter 4

Introduce Me

Lee heard more about Kara Thrace and the sims that evening when his roommate Marty returned from dinner. Lee had skipped the meal in the cafeteria, electing instead to get a sandwich from the vending machine downstairs in his dorm in order to work on the first big assignment in his Command Strategies class.

Marty came in at 21:30, talking exuberantly and smelling of beer. "You missed it, man. I told you that you should have come with us."

"Missed what?"

"About halfway to the cafeteria, we decided to go to McGee's instead. Guess who was there holding court at a corner table?"

Lee still hadn't turned around from proofing the last page he'd typed on his computer. "You know I'm starting to think you're spending more time at McGee's this year than studying. Who was holding court at a corner table?"

"Kara Thrace, man. You did hear about the Viper sims, didn't you?"

At the mention of Kara's name, Lee finally turned. "I heard. So what's she like?"

"The famous Kara Thrace. I didn't remember her being that good looking."

"What do you mean you didn't remember her being good looking? Where have you seen her before?"

"She played for the Academy pyramid team a couple of years back. Not a starter, but she played a little in most of the games. Pretty damned good, too, for a freshman. If she hadn't gotten hurt right before the end of the season, she'd have been a starter by her second year."

"What happened to her?"

"She hurt her knee, I think. But then you wouldn't know any of that because you don't go to sporting events. You spend all your time studying."

"Right, and we know you don't. So go on with your story. We've established that she's attractive. Blond, brunette, short, tall?"

"Slim, short blond hair. Average height from what I remember. I only saw her sitting down tonight. She's hot, though. Oh, yeah. Damned hot."

"I guess you got her autograph."

Marty finally acted embarrassed. "Nah. She was sitting with a bunch of her friends. Drinking and cutting up. I gave her a thumb's-up one time, though, and she raised her beer to me. She might even have winked, but I couldn't see too good through the cigar smoke."

"Has she got a boyfriend?" _Now why had he asked that? What did he care if she had a boyfriend?_

"I couldn't tell. It didn't look like it to me. Do you want me to find out for you?"

"Hey, you're the guy who said she was hot. I thought you'd have found out all about her."

"Give me time. I will."

Lee mused. "If she has a boyfriend, it would be tough if he were a pilot, wouldn't it? Knowing your girlfriend is just as good in the cockpit."

"Just as good? Hell. Better." Marty said it like he knew what Lee was thinking. "It wouldn't bother me, though. I'd put _myself_ in her _hands_ in a minute, less than a minute, couple of seconds, couple of nano-seconds."

"Put a sock in it, horndog," Lee said, "I got your meaning. Have you ever met a girl whose pants you didn't want to get in?"

Marty seemed to be thinking. "Not many, no. I'm not the brain you are Lee. The first thing I think about when I meet a girl is not her frakking IQ. I look at her lips and move down to her…"

"Cut it out," Lee said. It came out harsher than he'd intended. He went on, more gently this time. "If I start thinking about girls I won't get any more work done on this damned assignment and right now it's kicking my butt worse than any of Burgher's Viper sims."

"Okay, brain-man. Just because you're my roommate, I'll pass along a little something to help you on _your_ quest for information. You know Karl Agathon, don't you?"

"We have a class together. Why?"

"He was in Thrace's entourage tonight. I don't think he's her boyfriend, but I got the impression they know each other pretty good. Bet he could tell you something about our hotshot sim ace. And if you meet her, tell her your roommate's the man of her dreams. Her hot, sweet, wet dreams."

Lee finally laughed. "Right. You can count on me telling her that very thing. And thanks. Once in a while I realize why I put up with you."

Marty snorted. "I love you, too, man, even if you care more about your grades than you do a red-hot babe."

...

Lee waited in the hall the next day for Karl Agathon to leave their Strategy class. As Karl exited, Lee fell into step beside him. "How's it going, Agathon?"

"Okay. Man, that assignment kicked my butt. You sounded like you really understood what was going on. How long did you work on it?"

"Long enough." They walked in silence for a few steps and then Lee said. "I hear you're a friend of Kara Thrace. Is that right?"

"Yep. I guess you heard about yesterday. So what is it? You want to know if it's really true or just want to say the only way she could have done it was cheat?"

"Uh, neither one. I just want to know something about her. No one has ever smoked all of Burgher's sims first time out. She made Academy history. What I'd really like to do is offer her my congratulations."

"Sorry, Lee. I didn't mean to jump you like that. It's just that most people don't believe it or if they do, they think she cheated."

"How could she have cheated? Burger changes those sims on the fly every single time. He's always coming up with new stuff to put in them, too. The only way somebody could cheat is if they could read his mind."

"Yeah. Well, the thing about Kara is that she's got lightening fast reflexes and probably the best hand-eye coordination of anyone I've ever known. When we were growing up, nobody could ever beat her in video games if it involved flying or shooting or anything like that. It's like when she was a baby, the gods reached down and touched her and gave her a special gift."

"That good, huh?" Lee thought he would like to have had a chance to go up against her. He bet he could have given Kara Thrace a run for her money. Nobody had ever beat him either.

"Well, I watched Kara smoke those sims." Agathon grinned. "It was pretty frakking awesome."

"Why were you there? You've already done the sims."

"She asked me to be there."

"Are you her boyfriend?"

"Me?" Agathon snorted. "No way. We're good friends. I've known Kara a long time. She's like a sister. You definitely want her on your side in a fight. She has a really mean right hook. She's a good drinking buddy, too. Look, Lee, I'll introduce you if you want to congratulate her, but if you're thinking of anything else, like wanting to date her, forget it. You're not her type. I mean you are, because you're a guy, but not really the kind of guy she goes for."

Lee felt himself bristle. "What's that mean?"

"No offense. You're just a little too straight up serious and rules and regs for her. Kara's smart, but she's definitely not about the rules all the time. In fact, she's mostly _not_ about the rules all the time."

"You've got it all wrong, Karl. I'm not in the market for a girlfriend. I've got one right now. I just don't want to pass up the chance to meet someone who aced Burgher's sims. So are you going to introduce me or not?"

"Yeah, of course, sure. But don't ever say I didn't warn you."

"Warning taken. Where and when?"

"Where else? Tonight at McGee's. Table in the corner in the back. Anytime after 19:00."

Lee gave Agathon a questioning look. "Do you guys ever _study_?"

Karl laughed. "Sure. Before nineteen hundred, and after midnight. McGee knows we need to hit the books from time to time. We can always count on him to run us out."

TBC…


	5. Kara's Little Accomplishment

Chapter 5

Kara's Little Accomplishment

There was never any question that Kara would celebrate at McGee's. The night she flew the sims and the next night and the rest of the week. The night after the sims as she and Karl walked to McGee's, he said to her. "There's somebody who wants to meet you. One of your new fans. He aced the first sim, but crashed on the second one, so he has a real clear understanding of what you did yesterday. I told him where we'd be tonight so maybe he'll show up."

"Who?" Kara asked, not paying much attention. She was still on such a high from the day before that she still felt like she was in a free fall.

"Lee Adama. He's a fourth-year like me."

"Okay," Kara said. "Is he hot?"

"Frak, Kara, like I'm going to know if another guy is _hot_? He's okay, I guess. But even if you think he's hot, he's not your type. I mean he is because he's a guy, but just trust me on this one, okay?"

"Ohhh, you just crushed me," she said with a pout and then grinned. "And why is he not my type?"

"Because he's Mr. Rules and Regs. And he's smart, near the top of our class. Maybe second. For all that, he's a nice guy. His dad is Commander William Adama. I'm pretty sure he's commanding a battlestar right now...the _Galactica_, I think. It wouldn't be smart to screw over his son."

"Wow, a commander's son," Kara said. "I don't think I've ever frakked a Commander's son before."

"Kara." Karl said in a warning tone.

"Okay, okay, Karl. I'm just playing with you. No jumping his bones. I promise. Lee Adama is off limits."

...

Lee forced himself to wait until 19:30 before he left for McGee's. He was thankful his roommate wasn't there because it spared him having to tell Marty where he was going. And he didn't want Marty tagging along tonight. A fifteen-minute walk would put him there around 19:45. The last thing he wanted to do was appear too anxious.

The table in the corner in the back had one seat left by the time he got there. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that he shouldn't be in McGee's on a weeknight, but on his way to the back, he passed several faculty members and those were just the ones he recognized.

When he got to the table, Kara Thrace took her foot off the seat of the one remaining empty chair and pushed it in his direction. He realized with a little shock that she had been saving that chair for him.

Kara didn't need Karl's nudge to know it was _him_. Using her foot she pushed the chair toward Lee without taking her eyes off him. Good-looking, he was definitely good-looking. And nice body, too. He clearly spent some time in the gym. Even with him in jeans and a sweater, it took her just a few seconds to figure that out. And even though the jeans weren't all that tight, he looked really good in those, too.

She finally raised her eyes. "Cadet Lee Adama, I presume."

"That's right." He leaned over and stuck out his hand. She was prettier than he had imagined. A lot prettier.

Their eyes met and Kara felt her breath catch. _Oh, frak, what killer blue eyes._ Man, that combination of dark hair and blue eyes always got her going. Too bad she'd promised Karl. She was pretty sure she and Lee Adama could have some real fun. Her eyes swept his body again. He was most definitely hot.

"Congratulations Cadet Thrace," Lee said. "I was really impressed when I heard about your _little_ accomplishment in Burgher's sims."

She leaned up and shook his hand. "_Little_? Right. Bigger than yours, Cadet Adama. The _accomplishment,_ that is. And it's Kara."

He felt his face grow hot. "Call me Lee. When I said _little _I really meant just the opposite. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come across as condescending."

She laughed. Damn, even in the dim light she could tell he was blushing. "You've got to be careful using irony or big words at this table, Lee. Those of us in the bottom half of our class might not understand." There was laughter from a few of the cadets sitting there.

Lee sat down. This was definitely not going as expected. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Hey, don't be embarrassed. Not many guys know how to take me right now. Frak, I don't know how to take myself right now."

Agathon said, "Isn't that the truth."

"Frak you, Karl." She gave him a playful punch on the arm. "You're not supposed to agree with me on everything. You're going to give the commander's son the wrong idea."

"Hey, you said it," Karl retorted.

Lee began to wonder how long a human could sustain a blush because his face had been burning since he'd sat down. "So you know about my father?"

"Not mentioning any names, but somebody clued me. I hope I get to meet your father someday. I'd really love to serve under his command on the _Galactica_. Launch out of a tube pulling about a thousand Gs. I can only imagine the rush. It's got to be better than flying Hamburger's sims."

"There's not much use for battlestars these days. It's nothing but test flights, training runs and recon."

Kara nudged Agathon. Lee Adama was way too serious. "Well damn. And here I was hoping to graduate from the Academy and then Flight School and start shooting down Cylon Raiders. You mean I might get stuck doing _recon_?"

Karl looked at Lee and shook his head. "Sorry, Lee, I warned you. Here, have a beer. Hey, Kara, Lee smoked the initial Viper sim first time out. He's okay."

Kara raised her beer. "Smoked the intro, wiped out on the second one. Yeah I heard. What got you? The asteroid?"

"The asteroid. Two minutes before the end of the sim. I mean we all know it's coming, just not when. I almost got by it, but it clipped my wing. Spun me right into a Raptor. Big boom. Sim over. I nailed it the second time, though."

"I bet you did. Yeah, I bet you did. What's your call sign?"

"Apollo."

"Son of Zeus. Because of your father?"

"That's what everyone thinks. No, I wasn't even thinking about him when I picked it. You see, my grandfather…never mind. It's too long a story. What's your call sign?"

"I don't have one yet. I've had a bunch of suggestions...some I won't mention in polite company. I just haven't found the right one. Hey, why don't you come up with one for me, Lee? A little old call sign should be nothing. I hear you're pretty smart. What, second in your class?"

Lee shrugged. "Third right now."

"Better than two-hundred fiftieth or wherever the frak I am in my class right now." She laughed. "I'll drink to third."

"I'll drink to graduating and flying Vipers," Lee said. He raised his beer.

"To flying Vipers," Kara said and drank.

"So say we all," Agathon added.

Lee looked at her then, at her beautiful smile and her smug cockiness, and on that night, he realized later, against his better judgment, and despite Karl Agathon's warning, he fell just a little bit in love with her.

TBC…


	6. Kara Meets the Major

Chaper 6

Kara Meets the Major

Lee knew he shouldn't go to McGee's a second time that week, but he found himself unable to resist when his roommate suggested it two nights later.

"I know you always say '_no'_," Marty said, "but you know I always ask. I'm not going to stay long. One beer, a couple of games of darts because I need some money for the weekend, and then I'm back here to do some _serious_ _studying_."

"Sure you are," Lee said. "But this time I'm saying '_yes_'."

"No kidding? What changed your mind?"

"I don't know. All work and no play…"

"So what are we waiting for?"

McGee's was more crowded than he expected and there were no tables available. Lee and Marty sat at the bar. From his seat he wasn't able to see the table where Kara usually sat, and decided not to go look and see if she was there. It wouldn't do to let Kara Thrace think he was _that_ interested. He wasn't really. He had a girlfriend. Right. He had a girlfriend.

Marty took his beer, wandered over to the dartboard and made a point of acting drunk, bragging about his skill, and then making some very mediocre throws. Within a few minutes he had some sucker willing to throw a game with him. Lee had seen the outcome of enough of those matches to know what was going to happen next.

He turned back to the bar and continued nursing the one beer he would allow himself that evening. Thirty minutes. That's all he would give himself before he returned to the dorm and his books. Frak, this trip to McGee's had been a total waste of time.

...

Kara never expected to see Lee Adama at McGee's anytime soon. Bookworm that Agathon said he was, Lee should have stayed out of McGee's. But two nights later he showed up again. She saw him come in with another cadet and go toward the bar, and then she couldn't see them any more. A few minutes after that she looked up and thought he was approaching the table.

But it wasn't Lee. It was a guy who looked a lot like Lee, only slightly older. And taller. Darker hair, same blue eyes. Casually dressed, khakis, dark pullover sweater. Good looking. Definitely good looking. Definitely an officer. Probably an instructor. This should be interesting.

"Cadet Thrace?" he asked.

"The one and only," she answered. "And you are?"

"Hugh Connelly. I heard about what you did a couple of days ago in the Viper sims. Conrad told me today after a committee meeting. I'm more than impressed. Congratulations." He extended his hand.

Kara shook it. "Thanks. It's Kara. And _Conrad_ would be?"

"Oh, sorry. Conrad Burgher...Colonel Burgher."

"So you were in a meeting with Colonel Burgher which makes you what, Colonel Connelly?"

"Major Connelly, but this is McGee's. We leave rank at the door."

"So I've heard. What do you teach?"

"History."

"Definitely not my strong suit. I squeaked by the required courses first and second years."

"Not in one of my class, you didn't. I'm sure I would have remembered you."

"Tarlton's class first year. Simpson's the second. They're both lucky I didn't die from boredom around mid-term. Hey, would you like to join us? I think the cadet sitting here has called it a night already." She indicated the chair next to her.

"You don't mind?"

"Caprica is a free colony," Kara said. "Especially if you're buying." She gave him her best smile and held up her empty beer bottle.

Hugh Connelly raised his hand and summoned a waitress. "A beer for Cadet Thrace and one for me," he said, "and put it on my tab." Then he sat down beside her. "Now tell me how you smoked those sims."

"No secret, really. It was just my lucky day," Kara grinned and raised her eyebrows, "and something tells me that this is my lucky night." She paused for a couple of beats, enjoying the expression on Connelly's face. "I can't say I've ever had an instructor buy me a beer before."

She knew he was an officer and an instructor. And he was older, at least early thirties, but he was hot. Yeah, he was hot. So maybe this really was her lucky night. After all, she had promised Karl to leave Lee Adama alone, but that promise didn't extend to hot instructors. There were strict rules against faculty-student fraternization, she knew, but then when had she ever been about the rules?

Kara thought Lee had left, but fifteen minutes later, on her way back from the head, she saw him sitting at the bar. His back was turned and she could easily have walked past him. But she didn't.

"Well, well, well, Lee Adama. A-pol-lo. Twice in one week. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?"

Lee turned and found himself looking at Kara Thrace. "Oh, hi, Kara. I, uh, came with my roommate."

Kara looked around and grinned. She knew he had come in with another cadet, but she couldn't resist teasing him. She stepped up close to him and clearly invaded his body space. "You look like you're alone to me. Is he invisible?"

To her surprise he didn't move back and for several seconds they simply stared at each other, eyes devouring, saying things that neither consciously realized.

"I…uh…no…he's over there beating the pants off some cadet in a game of darts."

She finally rolled her eyes in the direction of the dartboards. "Right. Well. Would you rather sit alone at the bar or do you want to join us?"

"Join you, of course," he said much too quickly and then tried to cover his over-eager reply. "That is if there's room at your table," he tried to sound nonchalant.

Kara grinned. "For you, Lee, we'll make room."

As she stepped back she stumbled and Lee grabbed her arm. "Have you had too much to drink, Kara?"

"Not yet. But I'm getting there."

When they got to the table, she gestured to the instructor sitting with them. "This is Major Hugh Connelly, history instructor. Connelly, Lee Adama, fourth year. Lee, you know the rest of the guys."

Lee recognized Major Connelly immediately. As Kara made the introductions, Lee noticed that Connelly only glanced at him and nodded. His gaze rapidly returned to Kara. Kara resumed her seat beside Connelly and Lee sat partway around the table in the only empty chair.

"Major Connelly," he said. "You taught me Colonial History, first year. It's good to see you again, sir."

Hugh Connelly dragged his gaze from Kara. He was holding a beer bottle by its neck and raised it slightly in acknowledgement. "Adama. Aced the final exam. You know your history. And this is McGee's. Lose the _Major_."

Kara half stood and leaned across Connelly to get a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the other side of the table. From where he was sitting, Lee could see that her breast was pressed against Connelly's arm. Connelly made no attempt to move.

"Sorry," she giggled. "I'm not trying to knock you over."

Connelly finally shifted in his chair. "Just ask, Kara. I'll be glad to pass them to you."

Kara giggled again and put her hand on the top of his thigh. "Well, then, pass me the nuts, Connelly."

Lee couldn't believe Kara was being so forward with an instructor. Faculty-student fraternization was forbidden and that rule was strictly enforced. She was being stupid and stupid could get Connelly in big trouble. Stupid could get Connelly fired and possibly court-martialed. Lee caught her eye and frowned.

"What?"

He shifted his eyes toward the major, but Kara either didn't understand or chose not to. "Nothing," he finally mumbled. 'Where's Agathon tonight?"

"Studying, I think. Can you believe it? I'm going to have to have a talk with the boy. Desertion is a firing offense." She rolled her eyes.

"Well that's where I should be. I just came here for a few minutes with my roommate so he could win some spending money for the weekend. He throws a mean game of darts and there's always somebody here willing to give him money to prove it."

"My Academy roommate was a natural card shark," Connelly said. "That's how he made money for dating his whole four years here. Last I talked to him he was cleaning up on the _Columbia_. In his spare time he's their CAG."

Kara turned to Connelly. "Cards. Now that's my game. We'll have to play sometime."

"I said cards were my roommate's skill, not mine. I'm sure you'd win. Besides I'm too poor to pony up a stake right now. Alimony's a real bitch." He turned up the beer.

"Well I'm sure we could work something out," Kara raised her eyebrows suggestively and again leaned over Connelly, this time steadying herself with a hand against his chest as she took the beer from his hand. "I'm all out," she turned the bottle up, drank and then ran the tip of her tongue over her upper lip. "Um, hot."

Connelly almost choked on the peanut he'd just tossed into his mouth.

"The _beer_," Kara said innocently. "I'll go get us some cold ones or better yet, Lee, you're closest to the bar. Get us a couple of cold beers. Please. Tell the bartender to put it on Connelly's tab."

"Don't you think you've had enough?" Lee said quietly.

"Nooo, I don't," Kara drawled. "Are you going to get us some beers or not?"

"Not," Lee said. "I've got to get back to my studies. I'm sure you can find some other sucker to do your bidding." He looked at Connelly, then Kara. "Goodnight, Major, Kara, everyone."

As he turned to leave, he heard Kara ask Connelly, "Now what do you suppose has got into him?" He was too far away by the time Connelly answered her to hear the response.

Kara wasn't surprised by that last look Lee had given her. He obviously didn't approve of what she was doing, but then again, she didn't really care. Well, she cared, but not enough to stop.

She turned her attention back to Connelly, and after a few minutes, he put his arm across the back of her chair, leaned over and said to her too softly to be heard by anyone else, "I'm going outside and wait in my car for fifteen minutes. It's on the back row, third from the road. If you weren't just screwing with me tonight, you'll be there before I leave. If not, no hard feelings. And I mean that."

He got up and bid everyone goodnight. "See you around, Connelly." Kara said. Ten minutes later she got up too. "Don't laugh, but books are calling," she said to the rest of the table. Sure, books were always calling, but that didn't mean she was going to answer that call. Not tonight, anyway. Tonight she had something better to do.

If anyone at the table figured it out, no one was stupid enough to say anything.

TBC…

**AN: **The character of Major Connelly was suggested by the scene in KLG1 where Lee confronts Kara about sleeping with Baltar. I thought it was interesting that Kara agrees with Lee's escalating insults until he mentions the major and then she hits him. That gave me the idea that the major was the sort of man who would cause not just jealous, but possibly also inadequate feelings, in Lee. That meant the major had to be good-looking, smart, and someone Lee looked up to. Thus the major became a well-regarded instructor at the Academy. The extent to which Kara's relationship with the major has bothered Lee is evident in that he throws it in her face after the passage of a number of years. I also felt like the major meant something to Kara, not necessarily in a romantic way, but as one-night stand who evolved into a friend. Knowing he most certainly died on Caprica was one of the reasons that Kara lost control and finally hit Lee.


	7. Fraternization

Chapter 7

Fraternization

Major Connelly was waiting for her right where he said he would be, and as she got in the car, she finally realized what she was about to do. Something she had never done before. There were some serious regulations against frakking an instructor or rather against an instructor frakking a student. But then again, she'd never been about the regs.

"Bet you didn't think I was going to show up."

Connelly looked over at her and shook his head. "Honestly, I didn't. I figured you were just using me to make your boyfriend jealous."

"Boyfriend? What boyfriend?"

"Adama."

Kara snorted. "What gave you the idea he was my boyfriend?"

"There's a very interesting dynamic between you two. Half the time when you were talking to me you were looking at him. And he couldn't take his eyes off you."

Kara snorted. "Is that a fact? Well, he's not my boyfriend. I just met him a couple of nights ago. Seems he wanted to congratulate me on smoking Burgher's sims."

"Yeah," Connelly said, "seems to be a lot of that going around. Look, Kara, I've been sitting here thinking about how crazy I am to have asked you to meet me. We're way past that red line right now with you just sitting in my car. Why don't I take you back to your dorm? No hard feelings. I promise."

"You know something, Connelly, I've never been too much about rules and regs. And I like it past the red line. Sometimes I think I've lived most of my life beyond the red line. But if you've changed _your_ mind…"

Hugh Connelly started the car. "Lords of Kobol, Kara, maybe I don't value my teaching career as much as I think I do. I can't believe I'm doing this."

Back at his apartment, a small, neat, one-bedroom place about a mile from campus, he threw his keys on the table. "It's not much. I'm divorced. My wife, ex-wife kept the house. With child-support and alimony this is all I can afford."

Kara looked around. "Next to some of the places I grew up in, this looks like the Caprican Governor's mansion."

"Would you like something to drink? Another beer? I think I've got…"

She cut him off. "No thanks. We both know that I'm not here for the beer."

"I guess I'm just trying to make damned sure you don't think you have to…go through with this."

"Don't tell me you've never done this before."

"With a cadet? Hell, no. 'I've never even come close."

She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. He was taller than Lee. Frak, why had she thought about _him_? "Well, doesn't that just make me feel special? Relax, Connelly, if you're worried about me saying something about this, don't be." She made a motion like she was zipping her lips shut. "I don't kiss and tell."

"That's good to know."

"Unless you're really, really good. Then I'll write your number on the bathroom wall in my dorm."

"Uh, Kara…"

She grinned. "Just playing with you. And you _don't_ need to worry about me doing something I don't want to do. I don't. Ever. Somewhere out there there's a few guys with the scars to prove it."

He pushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and for the first time since they had walked into his apartment, he seemed to relax. His lips touched hers briefly, more of a question than a kiss. He smiled at her. "Be gentle with me, okay?"

"Oh, I'm not going to make any promises I'm not sure I can keep."

The first time wasn't so good. He was scared or nervous, probably both, and he fumbled in the nightstand drawer for what seemed like forever before he found the little box he was looking for. And then it was over before they hardly got started. Way too quick for her. So maybe it had been a long time for him, though Kara couldn't imagine that somebody as good looking as Connelly was going without sex. Even worse, he couldn't stop apologizing.

Finally she had to tell him to shut up. "You don't think you're going to get away with just once do you?"

He was on his back with one arm crooked over his eyes. "You mean I get a second chance?"

"And third, too, if you're up to it. And I mean that the way it sounded."

After that, everything was fine. He was a much more skillful lover than she first thought, and she found that if she closed her eyes about halfway, he really, really looked like Lee Adama. Maybe it was the alcohol at work in her brain, but for a minute she thought she was in bed with Lee. That did it for her. Pushed her right over the edge in the best kind of way.

She managed to stop herself from calling Lee's name out loud, although when she was able to think again, she did give him silent credit for it. _Thanks, Lee, that was beyond good. Better than anything I've had since I don't remember when._ Yeah, wonder what Mr. Rules and Regs would think about that? _Pathetic, Kara. That's pretty damned pathetic. Talking to the guy you wish you'd just frakked. _It was all she could do not to laugh.

She and Connelly lay and talked for a long time afterward. About his divorce, about his ex-wife's affair with her boss at the ad agency where she worked, about how tough it was not to see his two young sons but every other weekend and once during the week.

And she found herself opening up to him about some things in her life, too. Like how she'd gotten into the Academy because her mother was a decorated Marine who had been wounded twice in the line of duty, and how she had played on the freshman pyramid team until she messed up her knee. And how her father was a musician whom she hadn't seen in years and wasn't even sure where he was now. And then she told him about her Physical Education instructor, Captain Reider, who was giving off some seriously creepy vibes.

"I can't place him," Connelly said. "What's he look like?"

"A little taller than me, slim, brown hair, going bald on top. Kind of struts when he walks. Acts like he's the gods' gift to women. The gods' joke is more like it."

"I know who you're talking about now. I saw him at the start of the year at the big faculty dinner. He was sitting with a couple of the coaches. Last year Conrad Burgher told me we'd gotten a new PE teacher, a captain who'd washed out of Flight School. What do you want to bet that's him?"

"So the frakker is a washout. Didn't have the chops to get his wings. That explains a lot."

"I shouldn't have told you that, Kara. And I trust you'll keep it confidential. Has he ever said or done anything reportable?"

"You mean has he gone past the red line?"

"Past it or even close to it?"

"Not yet."

"I want you to promise me that if he does, you'll report him."

"I doubt he'll be that stupid. He's just been dogging me and another cadet about our times on the obstacle course, which aren't the best, but aren't the worst either. She's the only other female in our PE class besides me who's on track to go to Flight School. He leaves the other females alone. And the guys, of course. You think I should frak him and get it over with? Or should I kick his ass?"

"Well, Kara, I'm sure not in favor of the former, and since the latter will get you expelled, I'm not in favor of that, either, though I can understand why you'd want to."

"I was just kidding. I wouldn't frak that creep if he had a gun to my head. But I could seriously kick his ass without a second thought."

"Want me to kick it for you?"

Kara had been lying on her back and now she rolled over and kissed him. "You'd do that for me? I didn't think history teachers were fighters."

"Hell, Kara. Right now I'd take on a dozen Reiders for you. Just say the word." He put his arms around her and kissed her back. The kiss started out playful but quickly became passionate. "A little earlier you said something about a third chance."

"I thought you'd never ask," Kara said softly.

The third time was even better than the second. And she didn't think about Lee at all.

TBC…

**AN: **Okay, fellow L/K shippers, I apologize for what Kara did with the major, but since it is integral to their story as I have imagined it, this had to happen. I hope I made it as painless as possible.


	8. The Morning After

Chapter 8

The Morning After

Kara woke up early in the morning when only the faintest gray light was showing around the blinds in Connelly's bedroom. He was still snoring softly as she slipped out of bed. Gathering her clothes, she went into the living room and quickly dressed.

She found a small notepad in the kitchen and wrote him a note that she left with his keys. She already knew that she couldn't do this again. He was way too nice a guy to get fired for having a relationship with her. In no way, shape or form was she worth it. Just in case she wasn't a one-night stand for him and he had ideas that they would do this again, she wanted him to know where she stood.

_Your __x-wife is crazy. You're a __great__ guy. It would be fun to do this again, but I'm not worth your career. So let's remember this terrific night for what it was and not plan an encore. K._

Quietly closing the apartment door behind her, she found her way to the stairwell and hurried down two flights of stairs to ground level. She didn't want to risk running into anyone in the elevator. Outside, she oriented herself and started a slow jog back to campus. Not until she was inside her dorm did she relax.

Without making any noise she let herself into her room. Her roommate Dana didn't even stir. Just as quietly Kara slipped off jeans and sweatshirt and crawled into her bed. A few minutes after that she was asleep, her night with Major Connelly already becoming more like a hot, sweet dream than reality.

She told only one person about what she had done because she trusted him with her life and she knew he would never betray her. Karl's reaction was exactly what she knew it would be.

"Are you frakking crazy, Kara? There's nothing, absolutely nothing that will end his career at the Academy faster than getting caught with a student. He'd be lucky to get assigned to a fleet garbage transport. Hell, he'd probably be court-martialed. And Major Connelly is a great teacher. Getting him canned would be worse than wrong. It'd be a crime. Not to mention it would go on your record. Kara, you can't do this."

"I know, Karl, I know. It was stupid. I was stupid, but I'd had too much to drink and he's sooo nice. Gods, I know he's at least ten years older than I am, but he is a terrific guy. I will never do it again. I swear to you. The only reason I told you was so you could help me stick to it."

"I'll sure as hell try. How does he feel about it?"

"I don't know. I haven't talked to him since it happened, but I left him a note telling him one night was it. I'm sure that's all it was to him, but, you know, just in case…"

"Well, make sure you stick to it. I know you and men, Kara, especially if he's a good lay, and that doesn't mean I'm asking about you and the major."

"And this doesn't mean I'm telling you anything, but I'm going to have to be really strong to stick to my guns on this one."

"That good, huh?"

"You know in a way he reminds me of Lee Adama."

"What?"

"Major Connelly. He reminds me of Lee. An older Lee."

"Are you telling me you frakked Major Connelly because he reminds you of Lee? Oh, hell, Kara, please don't tell me you frakked Connelly instead of Lee because of what you promised _me_."

Kara shrugged. "You know better than to try to figure out why I do anything or to ask me to figure it out. He's really nice."

"Who? Major Connelly or Lee?"

"I was thinking about Connelly, but I'm sure Lee is nice, too. He was there last night at McGee's, and I invited him to the table, and then I acted like a …I some stupid stuff like put my hands all over Connelly. Lee looked at me like I was the Academy's resident slut."

Karl gave her a puzzled look. "Why do you care what he thinks?"

"I guess I don't want him thinking I'm such a screw-up."

Karl sighed. "It's a little late for that now, don't you think? You know you could avoid about ninety-nine percent of your screw-ups if you'd think before you acted."

Instead of getting angry, Kara sadly agreed with him. "You think I would have learned by now, don't you? Screwing up is my one skill. The only thing I'm really good at."

"No," Karl said and gently punched her shoulder. "Not your only any more. I think you can add flying sims to the list."

"Yeah," Kara said and smiled. "Yeah, I think you're right. Now I'm a hot sim-flying screw up."

...

Kara avoided McGee's for several nights. There was no sense putting herself in the way of temptation in case Lee or Major Connelly should be there. Not that Lee would give her the time of day now.

She and Dana went to a movie on Saturday night and then she went with a group of her dorm mates to a free concert in the student union auditorium on Sunday afternoon. The group was local and not all that great, but it beat sitting in her room all afternoon.

Just before the concert started, she saw Lee come in with a woman. She looked like she was a few years older than him, but she was still very pretty. Nearly as tall as Lee, slim, and with long, blond hair. She was dressed in hot designer jeans, spike-heeled boots, and a tight black jacket that probably cost more than Kara's entire wardrobe. Every male in the room looked at her as she and Lee searched for seats. _Frak, no competing with that._ Lee Adama sure knew how to pick them.

As they were leaving after the concert, she saw Major Connelly at the back of the crowd. She lost sight of him until they were out of the building. He was standing on the wide steps talking to two male cadets and Kara looked at him and smiled and gave him a little wave. He nodded in her direction and resumed his conversation with the other cadets.

That night he called her dorm room.

Her roommate answered the phone and handed it to her. "For you, a guy. Not Karl."

"This is Kara."

"Hugh Connelly."

"Oh, hi," Kara said, her voice very neutral.

"I take it you can't talk right now."

"Nope."

"I've been to McGee's a couple of nights. I thought I'd see you there."

"I've been studying."

"Avoiding me?"

"Not exactly. I just needed to study. Actually yes, I was avoiding you, but you know why."

"Will you meet me?"

"Now?"

"Now, tomorrow, you say when and where."

"Tomorrow at ten in the cafeteria."

"I'll be there." He hung up.

Dana looked up at her. "A new guy in your life and you haven't told _me_? He has a really nice voice. Do I know him?"

Kara shrugged. "I doubt it. He's just a guy I met at McGee's the other night. He wants to meet me for coffee."

"Cute?"

"Yeah."

"Too bad I'm in class at ten tomorrow or I'd check him out for myself when you meet him in the cafeteria."

"Yeah," Kara said. "Too bad you're in class then."

TBC…


	9. The Major Has a Crush

Chapter 9

The Major Has a Crush

Kara sat at a table in the cafeteria where she could see everyone who came in. Major Connelly was almost twenty minutes late.

"I thought I was getting stood up," Kara said.

"Sorry," Connelly said. "I have a class from nine to ten. I let them out a few minutes early, but one of my students had some questions about the test next week."

Kara teased. "A female student, I'll bet. And she really wasn't asking about the test. You're just too hot for your own good, Major. I bet you have to keep some long office hours to help out all those poor struggling students."

He didn't say anything for half a minute, just played with the little stir stick that had come with his coffee. "Frak," he finally said without looking up at her. "I know I'm crazy and I know what your note said, but I want to see you again. Go ahead, tell me what an idiot I am."

Kara took a deep breath. "You want your next assignment to be on a garbage transport? You want to face a court-martial? Do you think I could live with myself if that happened? And please don't tell me that nobody would find out. You know that sooner or later somebody would. With my luck it would be sooner."

"I agree with you. What if I'm willing to take the risk?"

"Well, I'm not. If it was just my career, I'd go for it, but I won't risk yours. You've got two sons to think about."

He finally looked up at her. "A couple of weeks after my divorce was final, I met a woman, just one of those chance things. I had my sons and the dog at the park. The dog got away from us. She was jogging and found him. She's a sales rep for Nico Bucetti."

"That doesn't ring any bells, sorry."

"Bucetti designs suits and business attire for professional women, ambassadors, government officials, women who are seen in important places. Stacey, that's her name, travels all over the Twelve Colonies. She's usually gone two sometimes three weeks out of the month. She's been gone almost two weeks now. She's coming back day after tomorrow and until a couple of nights ago I was looking forward to it. Now it doesn't seem all that important."

Kara found she couldn't look at him so she looked out the tall windows at the quad. Frak, what had she done? She took another deep breath and blew it out. "I'm really sorry. Gods, Connelly, I am so sorry. I'm such a screw-up."

"This wasn't your fault, you know. I was the one who told you I'd wait for you in the parking lot so I'm not trying to blame you. The point is I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I haven't stopped thinking about you, but you're right. I do have my sons to think about. As much as I want to, we can't see each other again. Not like the other night. I was wrong to ask you. But would you still meet me sometime for coffee, like this, or maybe for lunch? Nice and public."

She smiled. "Absolutely, Major Connelly, I'll meet you for coffee or lunch. You're a nice guy. I need more of those in my life. Hey, I'll only be a student for another year and seven months."

"And by the time you're a hotshot Viper pilot, you'll have forgotten all about this. About me."

"Don't frakking bet your next paycheck on that."

He smiled, reached out and briefly covered her hand with his. "It's a damned good thing I can't be shipped off to a garbage transport for what I've been thinking about for the last couple of minutes. Now I'd better get out of here before I make a bigger fool of myself than I already have. I'll be in touch. Take care of yourself."

"Yeah, you too."

Connelly got up and walked away. Kara watched him leave the cafeteria and silently cursed her luck with men. Of the two men she'd been really attracted to lately, Lee Adama had a hot girlfriend and Major Connelly was off-limits. That was just her frakking luck.

When Kara finally stood up and turned around, she saw Captain Reider sitting three tables away looking at her. Gods, how long had the little creep been sitting there? How had he gotten past without her seeing him? Frak, had he seen Connelly touching her hand? Could he have heard anything they said? Now the pervert could add spying to his list of sins. He'd obviously been watching her and Connelly.

When Reider realized that she had seen him, he gave her a quick little two-fingered salute and a sick-looking grin. She picked up her books and left, walking all the way around the perimeter of the room so she wouldn't have to walk past him. Frakking creep. She had a really bad feeling about him.

...

That night her roommate asked her how the meeting in the cafeteria went with the new guy.

"It'd never work."

"Why not?" Dana asked.

'"He's just way too nice. I'd only frak up his life."

"Too bad. You know one day, Kara, you ought to quit with the bad boys and give nice guys a try."

"Yeah, Dana, one day I just might."

...

Lee swore off McGee's after witnessing Kara's display with Major Connelly. Agathon had been so on target about her. Besides, there was just too much at stake for him to be out drinking during the week. He'd felt a real attraction to her, but he'd just have to get over it.

One afternoon several weeks later, he saw her coming across the quad. He was trying to figure out a way to avoid her when she saw him, waved, and jogged in his direction. She was wearing fatigues and sunglasses.

"You got my call sign yet?" She grinned.

"I thought you'd have one by now," he said.

"Not yet. I'm waiting on you, Lee. So where you been lately? I've only been to McGee's a couple of times, but I looked for you."

_Really?_ He felt his resolve start melting until he remembered the last time he'd seen her. "Right. You wanted to get drunk and show off with another major for me?"

"Oh, frak you," she said, but immediately grinned. "I made a mistake, okay. It was no big deal. So you've never made a mistake?"

"Not like that. Besides, I can't spend every night in McGee's. I've got to study."

"Okay, I'll give you the week nights. But please, lords of Kobol don't tell me you study all weekend, too."

Lee shrugged. "Some weekends if I have a project or an exam coming up. But that's not all I do. I have a girlfriend."

Kara took off her sunglasses and stepped closer to him. She was in his space, but like that night at McGee's, he didn't move away. "A girlfriend? Lee Adama has a girlfriend? Oh, frak, I'm not surprised. You're so hot I'm surprised you don't have a dozen. So who is she? That pervy little brunette I saw stalking you around the cafeteria at lunch a few days ago?"

Kara was baiting him. She knew exactly what his girlfriend looked like.

_Hot? Kara Thrace thought he was hot?_ "Uh, no, she's not a cadet."

"What? A fashion model? A college student? She works with FTL technology? What kind of woman has won your heart, Lee?"

"She's a…she tends bar at the…at someplace in the city."

A bartender. Never in a million years would she have guessed that hot babe with Lee was a bartender. She looked like a model or a rich party girl.

Kara grinned a wicked grin and lowered her voice. "Frakking a bartender, huh? Are you good enough that it gets you free drinks?" She raised her eyebrows and he saw light dancing in her beautiful eyes. "You think you could get some free drinks for your friends?"

"You know that's one reason I like you, Kara. You're so subtle."

"You _like_ me? Lee Adama _likes_ me?"

Oh, frak, he could feel his ears start to burn. "That and you fly an awesome sim. I mean you must. Fly an awesome sim, sims. Uh, I've got to go. I'm going to be late for class."

He was blushing and almost stammering. She had gotten to him and that made her happy. She smiled. "Right. You can't be late for class. I'm off to do the obstacle course with Captain Reider. Again. Last week this asshole says to me, 'Let's pick up the pace, Cadet. You're not in a Viper now. Oh, wait. You weren't really in a Vi-per. Just a sim-u-la-tor.' What a total creep."

"I don't believe I know him."

"Count that as something positive things in your life." She put on her sunglasses and started walking away, but turned, walked backwards for a few steps, and pointed both index fingers at him with raised thumbs. She smiled. "Free drinks. And don't forget my call sign, okay?"

Lee hurried across the quad, painfully aware that if they had stood there much longer, he would really have embarrassed himself. How did she always manage to do that to him?

TBC…


	10. The Obstacle Course

Chapter 10

The Obstacle Course

Kara hated the obstacle course. Not because it was hard, but because Reider was the instructor. The obstacles she would normally have taken as a challenge and really worked at became instead a chore to be merely gotten through. All she wanted to do was get passing scores so she could move on.

That afternoon the whole class did it once. But Reider kept her afterward.

"Cadet Thrace. You've got to improve your time on the wall to get a passing score."

He sounded so official, so detached, with his clipboard and stopwatch, pretending he was a real teacher.

"Yes, sir," she said and turned around instead of following the last of her classmates up the trail. She might as well get it over as quickly as she could. It had been that way with each obstacle on the course. Do it over. Do it over.

Once more wasn't enough, though. He made her do it twice. And of course her time was worse the second time. A lot worse. What did the frakker think? The more exhausted she got the faster her time would get?

She was bent over with her hands on her knees trying to get her breath, heart pounding, ears ringing, when she became aware he was saying something, and he was way too close to her. She tried to muster the energy to move away, but before she could do it, he grabbed her from behind.

With one arm wrapped around her breasts, he pulled her upright, shoved the other hand down the front of her pants and started groping her. He was saying something about her being hot, or maybe it was about wanting to see if she was hot. His crotch was thrust against her rear and he was already hard.

A surge of adrenalin coursed through her and she reacted without conscious thought. She slammed an elbow backward into his ribs and at the same time she threw back her head. She felt it connect with what she thought was his chin, but realized when she pulled free and spun around that it was his nose.

She was ready to fight, but now Reider was the one bent over, both hands cupped over his nose, gasping, cursing. Yeah, bet that frakker was seeing little white lights about now. Little white stars dancing in front of his eyes. She knew how bad it hurt to get popped hard in the nose.

"You…leave…me…alone," she gasped between breaths. "Alone...you…creep. Understand?" Then she turned and stumbled toward the trail.

She was lucky. When she reached the main path, she met several other cadets and joined them. By the time they veered off toward the first year dorms, there were others walking with her. She got back to her dorm without seeing Reider again.

She threw her fatigues onto the floor of the bathroom and stepped into a hot shower and scrubbed herself until she felt like she had removed all trace of Reider's touch. Mother-frakking creep. What should she do? Should she tell someone in authority? Probably. Would anyone in authority believe her? Probably not. And she'd always taken care of her own problems. If there was one thing Kara had learned as a child, it was not to bother her mother with _anything_.

She thought briefly of calling Connelly, but immediately dismissed the idea. He might do something stupid. Probably not, but she wouldn't take that chance. And Karl. No, she wouldn't tell him for the same reason. Even worse, Karl might ask her if she'd done something to encourage it and that would make her want to punch him out. He knew how much she despised Reider.

She thought of Reider's hands cupped over his nose. She'd seen blood at the edge of one of his hands. Hopefully she'd given the creep a bloody nose and something to think about. She made her decision. She would keep this one to herself and see what happened. Maybe he'd think long and hard before he messed with her again.

Kara felt better as she srubbed herself one last time. She seriously doubted he'd mess with her again.

TBC…


	11. Drunk and Disorderly

Chapter 11

Drunk and Disorderly

Saturday night, two days after Reider had assaulted her and Kara had heard nothing from him since. That reinforced her feeling that he had learned something from the bloody nose. She hoped he'd learned it wasn't worth it to mess with her.

She had been studying all afternoon, studying while Dana took a nap, studying while Dana got ready for a date, studying when a couple of her dorm mates stopped by to ask her if she wanted to go with them to a movie. But she wasn't in the mood for a mushy, romantic, girly movie so she told them some other time. About 19:00 she called Karl. "How about lt's go to McGee's tonight?"

"No can do tonight. I've got a date. I was just about ready to leave. Tomorrow night?"

"Sure, Karl. Have a good time. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

She knew where Lee was. In the city with his girlfriend, no doubt. And Connelly was with Stacey, no doubt. But maybe not. Maybe Stacey was gone on one of her sales trips_. Don't do it, Kara. Don't even think about it_. She was still telling herself not to do it when she arrived at Connelly's apartment building and got to the edge of parking lot.

That's when she came to her senses. What the frak had she been thinking? As she turned to leave, she saw Connelly and a woman come out and start walking toward his car. Stacey was wearing a gorgeous, flowing, dress, and she was beautiful, raven-haired, petite, feminine, all the things Kara knew she was not. Connelly was wearing a suit so they must be going out to a nice restaurant or something. He looked relaxed and happy.

Before Stacey went around to the passenger side of the car, she kissed Connelly briefly on the mouth and then with a laugh, wiped off the smudge of lipstick. It was such an intimate, loving gesture that Kara felt it arrow straight through her heart. Neither one of them noticed her in the dim light standing under a tree near the corner of the lot.

She didn't stop walking until she was at McGee's. Only one thing was certain in Kara's mind at the time. She was going to get drunk. And get drunk she did.

By the time she made her third trip to the ladies room, she was feeling no pain. And there was Captain Reider sitting alone at the last table she had to walk past to get to the head, sitting at a table that was mostly in the dark so he could watch the restrooms. _Frakking bastard. _But she really had to go, so she just walked past him and ignored his greeting.

"Cadet Thrace, fancy seeing you here tonight."

The bathroom window was too small and too high to crawl out of, or she would have done it. Instead she stood at the sink stewing about having to walk back past Reider. There was nothing to do but just do it. She squared her shoulders and left the restroom.

"What's the matter, Cadet Thrace, going to run on by like a little coward? Don't have the guts to stop and talk? Yeah, I never did think you had the chops to make a _real_ pilot. Sims are more your speed. Yeah, can't handle the real thing." He laughed. "You're not really tough enough, are you? You can't even makeit over a little wall in decent time."

Oh boy, he should have known better. Or maybe he did. "Who are _you_ calling a coward, Reider?"

"That's _Captain Reider, sir_ to you," he slurred.

"This is McGee's. We don't do rank here."

"Is that a fact? Well, maybe you'd _do_ rank if it was _Major_ Reider. You seem to like majors. I bet you drop those hot pants real quick for a major, don't you? Well you know what I think? Since a particular major isn't around tonight, I think you and me should just go back to my place and finish what we started out there on the obstacle course. Who knows, you might find out a lowly captain is just as good as a major, maybe even better."

He was drunk, or nearly drunk. She could tell by the way he was slurring. But then so was she. _Walk away, Kara. Don't say it._ Instead she leaned down and put her hands on the table.

"I got nothing against captains, Reider. It's just that I can't see myself frakking a lame flight school wash out like you."

He went rigid for a few seconds and then he leaned forward. His face was inches from hers. "What the frak did you just say?"

"I said it's no damn wonder you couldn't handle a Viper. You can't even handle that little bitty stick between your legs."

His hand was still wrapped around the beer bottle when he swung. She saw it just in time to jerk her head back. He missed, but by maybe a millimeter. Condensation from the bottle pelted her face in icy drops that almost burned. He was on his feet, then, none too steady, ready to swing again, and she reacted instinctively...just pulled back her fist a short distance and popped him in the jaw. She didn't think it was hard enough to even hurt. All she was trying to do was stop him from swinging at her again, but he stumbled and went down.

And started howling like a baby. In no time at all, McGee's was pandemonium. There was no point in leaving. It wouldn't have mattered. The MPs would have come to her dorm and that would have been a lot worse. Instead she went to the bar and sat down and waited. She waited while a couple of faculty members helped Reider to his feet and then started questioning everyone who was still left near Reider's table.

Funny, no one asked her a thing. They just took it for granted that Reider was telling the truth. "_Arguing with me about her lousy scores on the obstacle course_," she heard him say, while holding his jaw. And "_had a bad attitude all term_." And then the worst, "_hit me when I refused to change her scores_." A short time later one of the faculty members left with Reider saying they were going to the emergency center to see if Reider's jaw was broken.

Yeah, she had done it this time. She was on her way out the door for sure. Expelled from the Academy. Well, isn't that what screw-ups do? But one by one the few people who were left on their side of the room shrugged and shook their heads as they were asked what had happened, and she realized that if anyone had seen her slug Reider no one was going to admit it. Still, if it came down to Reider's word against hers, whose word was Admin going to believe?

She tried to blank her mind while an MP mumbled something about her rights. While she was being driven to the brig, and escorted inside. While she was being charged with a drunk and disorderly and assaulting an officer. While the door clanged shut behind her and the lock clicked into place. She succeeded in blanking it out until she was alone.

Only then did she realize that while no one would admit to seeing her hit Reider, no one said he swung at her first either. She was frakked. Totally frakked. Nothing and no one was going to get her out of this one. She was on her way out of the Academy.

TBC…


	12. Lee Talks in His Sleep

Chapter 12

Lee Talks in His Sleep

Lee lay in bed beside his girlfriend Gianne at her apartment in the city and listened to her quiet breathing. It was sometime in the early morning hours on a Sunday and he couldn't sleep. He finally got up and dressed.

"What are you doing up so early?" Gianne stretched and yawned. "Going somewhere?"

"Sorry I was trying not to wake you. I thought I'd go back and work on my physics assignment. This year has been a tough one. I've had more assignments…" he shrugged. "Go back to sleep."

"You aren't going to stay? I thought we'd sleep in and do brunch and then go to the outdoor concert at Orpheus Park. _Beggars and Choosers_ is playing. I love them."

"I'm a little tight on money right now, Gianne. And I need to study today. I've got a big test coming up on Thursday. Maybe we can do something next weekend."

"Lee, it's my treat."

Lee sat down on the side of the bed. "You know how I feel about you paying for everything."

"Why does it bother you so much? Just because I have a little trust fund."

"Little. I don't call three million cubits little. You should be spending that money on yourself, doing something to make life better for yourself."

Gianne sighed and sat up not bothering to cover her naked breasts as the sheet slid down. Gianne had really nice breasts, and any other time that would have ended the conversation, at least for a while. But for a reason he couldn't quite fathom, he didn't move, didn't reach for her like she was expecting him to.

Finally she said, "Please don't start that again, Lee. I don't want to hear about how I'm wasting my life tending bar, how it's a dead-end job. I tried college. You know that. I spent a year, well almost a year at Caprica U. It just wasn't my scene."

"Be fair, Gi. When have I _ever_ said you should go to college. I just think you're wasting your potential. You're great with people. Haven't you ever thought about something n public relations or sales? You'd be great."

"Have you ever tried to get a job competing against college-educated bitches with perfect teeth and hair not to mention cheekbones."

"You've got perfect teeth and hair and cheekbones, too. You're beautiful and you know it."

"But I don't have that little college degree that all those HR people want to see in their grubby little hands."

"All you need to do is get your foot in the door. Couldn't your father…"

"Please leave Daddy out of this. It wouldn't really be _me_ getting a job if I had to go to my father. Pythia's panties, Lee, you've got a few father issues yourself. I shouldn't have to tell you anything about not wanting something if the only way I could get it is because my old man told somebody to give it to me. It's bad enough that I tend bar in one of his hotels. Yeah, he humored me and told them to hire me, but I want to get the next job on my own. I just don't know what I want to do yet."

Lee stood up and walked to the window. The sky was a pearly gray. Unbidden Kara came into his mind. Where was she right now? What was she doing? In bed with Major Connelly? Probably. Sleeping? Probably not. Why did that thought bother him so much? He turned to Gianne. "I should be getting back."

"Is there someone else? Is that what this is all about? Do you want to break up with me?"

"Of course not. What made you say something like that?"

Gianne pulled the sheet up over her chest. "The last couple of weeks you've been distant. Preoccupied. I believed you when you told me it was your studies. Then last night you said the name _Kara_ in your sleep. Who is she?"

"Kara? I said Kara?"

"You did. Who the frak is she, Lee?"

"I don't know why I would have said her name. She's just some third year cadet who smoked all three of Colonel Burgher's Viper sims."

"And just what the hell does that mean?"

"She did something no one else has ever done. Beat my scores all to hell. I guess it was on my mind."

"You're sure that's all? Are you sure she's not more than that to you? Are you dating her? Do you want to date her?"

"Lords of Kobol, Gianne, what's with the interrogation? Look, I'm going to go back to my dorm and work on my physics assignment. I'll call you tonight."

Lee left with her accusation still ringing in his ears. What he had a hard time admitting to himself was that it was true. Kara Thrace had somehow become more to him than just a sim jock who had beat his scores all to hell. And he didn't know what he was going to do about it.

TBC…


	13. The Student Advocate

Chapter 13

The Student Advocate

Kara barely slept that night in the Academy's brig. She lay on the cell's thin none-too-fresh mattress and dozed, and then jerked awake, sweating, feeling sick. Early in the morning she was sick, and the stale odor of the beer and the none-too-clean toilet kept her dry heaving for a long time.

Her watch had been taken when she was put in the brig, and there wasn't a clock anywhere in sight, but she knew from the small window at the end of hall that it was early morning. She had been offered a phone call the night before but had efused it then.

Now she called for the MP on duty. "I'd like to make that phone call now." He let her use the phone on the wall near his desk.

She woke Karl up, and for a few seconds he was put out with her. "Frak, Kara, it's not even seven o'clock. What's going on?"

Her voice was hoarse from puking and dry heaving, so she had to repeat it. "I'm in hack."

"What? I can't hear you."

"I'm in hack. Can you come get me out of the brig?"

"What? Did you just say you were in the brig? What happened?"

"Long story. Will you come?"

"I'll be there as soon as I get dressed."

When he got there he found out that she couldn't just walk out. There was paperwork that needed an administrative signature. The MP began explaining to them and Karl told him to stop. "I think we need help from a Student Advocate. Is that all right with you?"

Kara said, "Just do whatever it takes. I really want to get out of here, get a shower and some serious rack time."

"About the charges."

Kara shook her head. "Later, Karl. We'll talk about it later."

"You've got to at least tell me something so I can get you some help."

"I'm charged with a D&D and assaulting an officer, an instructor, one Captain Reider, at McGee's last night about midnight. That enough for you to get me some help?"

"Lords of Kobol, Kara. I'll do what I can. This is so not good."

"Tell me about it."

...

The knock on the door of his dorm room was so soft and his concentration on the physics problem so deep that Lee didn't hear it the first time. Another knock, a little louder, and he finally turned from his desk and called, "Come in."

The door opened and Karl Agathon stuck his head in. "Hi, Lee. I hate to bother you on a Sunday morning, but have you got a minute?"

"Sure Karl, come on in."

Agathon stepped inside and closed the door. "Man, I'm glad I didn't wake you up. Where's your roommate?"

"Gone home for the weekend. His brother's birthday or something. Have a seat." He pointed to the chair at Marty's desk. "What's up?"

Agathon remained standing. "Are you still a Student Advocate? Because I won't bother you if you're not."

"Yeah, what do you need?"

Karl pulled out the chair, turned it around backwards and sat. "Kara's in trouble. Big trouble. The kind you need an Advocate for. Will you help her?"

Lee drew a long breath. Why did this news not surprise him? "What happened?"

"She's in the brig right now on a drunk and disorderly. She called me early this morning, and I went over there, but they won't let her out without the proper paperwork. I don't know where to start. She's probably going to get expelled and that will kill her." Agathon got up from the chair and walked to the window.

Lee took another long breath and blew it out. "If it happened on campus, you're probably right. I've never known Admin to make an exception to the _No Alcohol on Campus_ policy. An on-campus D&D is a one-way ticket home."

Agathon turned. "No, it wasn't on campus, thank the gods. It was at McGee's. Last night close to midnight."

Lee felt better. "I know this looks bad, but a simple D&D that happened off campus isn't the end of the world. She'll get sixty demerits and a month to walk them off on the quad, full gear, one demerit, one hour's marching. What she hasn't walked off in a month will go on her permanent record. I mean the whole thing will go on her permanent record, but walking off the demerits is a plus. She'll be confined to campus during that time. I've never heard of anyone getting expelled for an off-campus D&D, if it's the first offense. It is her first offense, isn't it?"

"Yeah. She's come close a bunch of times, but she always skated. Two different times I can remember me and her going out the back door of a bar when the MPs were coming in the front. But no, there's nothing that serious on her record. One fight with an obnoxious cadet after a Pyramid game her first year. That's all, I think. The other cadet threw the first punch. Kara was just defending herself."

"Hey, look on the bright side. Maybe this will curb her partying and get her to settle down and study. She's obviously got a hell of a lot of talent. It'd be a shame to lose a future pilot with her skills."

Agathon was shaking his head. "The thing is, it's worse than a simple D&D. She's also charged with assaulting an officer. A guy named Reider. He's teaches P.E. and does the obstacle course. He's been dogging Kara for the last couple of weeks. Ever since she flew those sims. Making her do lots of stuff over. I think it borders on harassment. Maybe it _is_ harrassment, but Kara wouldn't report him."

"You're right, Karl. That's a lot more serious. We're talking expulsion serious. What happened?"

"I don't know, Lee. That's why I'm asking for your help. I wasn't there at McGee's last night. I had a date. We went to a movie and…" he shrugged, apparently expecting Lee to know what happened after the movie. "Kara's been riding a high ever since she smoked those sims. I told her last week to get her head out of the clouds and quit thinking she's frakking invincible, but she…you just have to know Kara. Even that thing with Maj…" he stopped obviously realizing he had just said something he shouldn't have.

"Major Connelly?" Lee guessed.

"Yeah. Kara knows better. Like I said she's been on such a high. Just keeps pushing the envelope, testing the limits, taking it past the red line. And getting away with it. Until now. Man, talk about hitting the hard deck."

"You said you've been friends a long time. How long?"

"Since we were kids. Her mother and my dad are in the same Marine unit. She and her mom moved into base housing sometime when I was in the sixth grade. Kara was in the fifth so she would have been about ten, I guess. Her mom and dad had just separated. Kara transferred into the base school during the middle of a semester and it was tough on her."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Lee said. He was lucky that he had been able to attend the same school while growing up because his father was usually somewhere in space when he wasn't home.

"Anyway, not long after she transferred into my school, she got acquainted with the two school bullies. One was in my grade and his brother was a year older. They would pull you back into this recessed area by the cafeteria while we were coming in from the playground and punch you in the gut a couple of times and take your lunch money. All of the kids were afraid of them and nobody could stand up to them alone. Well, the day I met Kara it was my turn. They had me pinned against the wall and the next thing I know there's a flash of long blond hair and one of them goes down howling. There's Kara, who maybe came up to their shoulders, and she took one of them out with a kick that dislocated his kneecap. Damn, she was one angry little girl. I mean she was helping me and I was afraid of her. She turned on the other boy with both fists up and he starts backing away and then she grabbed my hand and says, 'come on, let's go.' I didn't need to be told twice. After that she sort of attached herself to me. We've been friends ever since."

"So she was a fighter even at the age of ten?"

"I think she was fighting a long time before that. Look, I don't want to talk about her childhood, but Kara had it rough growing up...real rough. Anything else I'd rather you get from her, okay. You know, deep down Kara really thinks of herself as a screw-up. That's why I think she sometimes does such stupid things. Will you help her? Please."

Lee was already up shedding his sweats and putting on his uniform. "Does she know you're asking me to help?"

Karl was looking out the window again. "I told her we were going to need help and she just asked me to do whatever it took."

Lee finished buttoning his uniform shirt and reached for his watch. "She's lucky to have you for a friend, Karl."

"Yeah, well this time I think her luck has run out."

TBC…


	14. Questions and Answers

Chapter 14

Questions and Answers

After Karl left, Kara lay down on the bunk and dozed again and woke up with a pounding headache, but at least the nausea was gone. She sat up and propped her elbows on her knees, put her head down and began massaging her temples.

When Lee walked up, he realized she hadn't heard him.

"Hey, Cadet Thrace. You're being released."

Kara knew her eyes were bloodshot before she saw his reaction. Why did it have to be _him_? Lee Adama looked like he was ready for a full inspection. Perfectly creased uniform, polished shoes, clean shaven. Gods, there ought to be a law against looking that good this early on a Sunday morning.

"Cadet Adama. Don't you look all spit-shined. I feel like crap. I'm sure I look like it, too."

"No comment. Come on. I caught Colonel Parker just before he left for his usual Sunday morning golf game. He signed a release for you. You're confined to campus until your hearing, which will be sometime this week. You'll need to sign this form that you understand. Class, dorm, cafeteria, library. Clear enough?"

Kara got up and came over as the MP unlocked the cell. "Oh, yes sir. I understand." She took the clipboard, signed the form and handed it to the MP. He handed her an envelope that held her watch and the little bit of money she had on her the night before.

She looked at Lee. "Why did Karl call _you_?"

"I do a few things besides the academics. I'm also a Student Advocate. I'll shepherd you through the hearing. Explain everything. Stuff like that."

"Keep me from getting expelled?"

"I didn't say that. But I will help you present your side of what happened when the time comes."

"My side of it," Kara's voice was low and sad. "That's a laugh."

They stepped into the bright Sunday morning sunshine.

"Frak me," Kara said and placed her hand up to shield her eyes as the sunlight shot bolts of pain into her skull.

"What, no sunglasses?" Lee asked as he put his on.

"Sun wasn't out last night."

"Oh, but you were, weren't you?"

"Yeah, smart guy. I was. Look, thanks for getting me out of hack, but I just want a shower and some serious rack time right now. Have you ever tried to sleep on one of those cell bunks? The mattress is like a piece of paper."

Lee finally vented some of his frustration with Kara's attitude. "No, I haven't. I'm sure in your eyes that makes me some kind of wuss, but I take my future career seriously. Something you obviously _didn't_ do. I think you've pretty much screwed your chances of ever launching in a Viper off a Battlestar. Launching in a Viper at all for that matter."

"Yeah, I figure I'm going to get kicked out." Her voice cracked. "I'm just a total screw-up. I always have been."

They walked in silence for several more steps, and then Lee took off his sunglasses and handed them to her.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"Okay," he said almost roughly. "Maybe I'm just a sucker for the underdog, but I feel like there's more to what happened than an insane attack on Captain Reider. So we're going to the cafeteria and get some coffee and breakfast for you and you're going to tell me exactly what happened last night."

"No food. I can't eat right now. It would just come back up. I got a bitch of a hangover."

"Yeah. I figured that out. No food, then. But we both need coffee."

"Coffee sounds good," Kara said.

They took their large cups of coffee and walked back out of the cafeteria. Lee led Kara over to one of the stone benches that ringed the quadrangle where they could talk privately. Seating her in the shade, he said, "Start at the beginning, and don't leave out a thing."

Kara took a deep breath. No way she was going to tell him about going to Connelly's before she went to McGee's. It was none of his business and it had nothing to do with what happened.

"I got to McGee's about 20:00. Before that I'd actually been studying, like all afternoon. I went to my usual table at the back, ordered a beer, talked to the guys who were sitting there, I was chilling, minding my own business."

"Prior to the incident with Captain Reider how many beers did you have?"

"I don't know. I didn't count."

"Guess."

'Five, maybe six. Yeah, probably six. And a big mug from a pitcher somebody bought."

"Did you have anything to eat?"

"Nope."

"So that pretty much establishes the drunk part of the charge. Was Major Connelly there?"

"No, Major Connelly was not there."

"Okay. What happened next?"

"On my second, no third, trip to the head, I noticed that creep Reider had come in and was sitting by himself at a table where I couldn't go take a pee unless I walked by him. He stopped me and started giving me grief. I said some stuff back to him. Next thing I know he's swinging at me with his frakking beer bottle still in his hand. He missed. I punched him. Somebody called the MPs. I sat at the bar and waited until they arrived. I think somebody took Reider to the Emergency Center to see if his jaw was broken. You know the rest."

"Was his jaw broken?"

"It couldn't have been. I didn't hit him that hard."

"How do you know?"

"Do you know how hard you have to hit someone to break his jaw?"

Lee shook his head.

"Look at my hand. It's not swollen or bruised. It's not even sore. If I'd broken Reider's jaw, you'd have seen it on my fist. All I was trying to do was stop him from swinging at me again. The wimp went down yelping like a little baby."

Lee ignored her last remark. "Did anyone else hear your conversation with him?"

Kara shook her head. "It was too noisy. Besides, I was in his face so it was private."

Lee gave her an incredulous look. "Holy frak, Kara. What were you thinking? He's an instructor."

"He's an asshole. And don't you get on my case. He started it. He swung at me first."

"And you're sure nobody else saw what happened?"

"While we were waiting for the MPs, one of the other faculty members was asking around for somebody to tell him what happened. If anybody did see, they wouldn't admit it. All they heard was that little cry-baby Reider yowling about how I was drunk and had slugged him because he refused to give me a better score on the obstacle course."

This was looking worse all the time. "Did you admit to anyone that you hit him?"

"Nobody every asked me anything?"

"That's actually good. No confession on record. Okay, what did he say to you and what did you say to him that caused him to swing at you?"

"Just stuff, trash. McGee's is supposed to be a place where rank doesn't matter."

"Kara, rank always matters. I need to know what was said if I'm going to help you. I don't care if it did happen at McGee's. Right now unless we can find someone who says Reider swung at you first, it looks like you're out on your ass. I don't care what kind of creep you think he is. He's not only an instructor, he's an officer."

"I don't _think_ he's a creep. His _is_ a creep. And as for him being an officer," Kara spat the word, "he gives the whole officer corps a black eye. Son of a bitch tried to _rape me_."

"What?" Lee wasn't sure he'd heard her right. "When?"

"The same afternoon last week when I talked to you. I told you he'd been on my case. He made me do the wall over after everyone else had finished and gone. Twice. And after the second time, when I was bent over trying to get my breath, the bastard comes up and grabs me from behind and sticks his hand down my pants and starts…starts," Kara swallowed hard and shuddered in revulsion as she remembered Reider's fingers against her, remembered him trying to shove them inside her. "Starts groping me," she finished.

Lee stopped himself from reaching out to her. "Did he do…anything else?"

"He didn't get the chance to. I threw my head back and cracked his frakking nose. It must have hurt because he let me go. I made it to the trail and walked back to the dorm with a couple of first years."

"Please tell me you reported it to your dorm advisor or somebody in authority."

Kara looked down and shook her head.

The exasperation was clear in Lee's voice. "Why not?"

"I didn't think anyone would believe me. I didn't want to talk about a disgusting incident. I didn't want to hear that whiny mother-frakker deny it. Pick one. There's no wrong answer. Look, I'm used to taking care of myself. I thought that would be the end of it."

"Okay." Lee was beginning to understand exactly what had led up to the previous night. "Let's move on to what he said to you."

Kara took a deep breath and let it out. "Mostly it was something about finishing what he started on the obstacle course. Only I think he said what _we_ started. He ragged me about having a weakness for majors and said he'd heard I couldn't keep my pants up when a particular one was around and since that one wasn't around last night he guessed he'd just have to do….sick frakker. He was really drunk."

Lee thought of Kara and Major Connelly and felt the last swallow of coffee rise in his throat. He forced it down. "Drunker than you? No, don't answer that. It doesn't really matter. And then you said to him?"

He saw a muscle twitch in her jaw before she took another deep breath. "I leaned down and got in his face and told him there was no way I'd frak a lame Flight School wash out like him. And then I think I said something about how it was no wonder he couldn't handle a Viper when he couldn't even handle the little stick between his legs. That's when he swung at me with the bottle still in his hand. Good thing he was drunk and his aim was off. Otherwise I'd still be picking glass out of my jaw."

"Lords of Kobol, Kara." Lee couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah," Kara said and smiled for the first time that morning. "That last one was pretty good, don't you think? Little bitty stick. Yeah, nailed that piss-poor excuse for a man. Nailed him right to the wall."

Lee was so overwhelmed by how beautiful she was when she smiled that it was several seconds before he realized what she had said. "Wait a minute. How do you know he washed out of Flight School? That's not something just anybody would know. Faculty records are kept really confidential."

Kara look down and the smile disappeared. "I've got my sources."

"I'll bet you have."

She ignored him. "I have a theory that Reider started picking on me because of the Viper sims, you know, because he didn't have the chops to make it as a pilot, and I, you know, smoked all three of 'em. Crap, it sounded better when I first thought about it."

"Did you discuss Captain Reider with Major Connelly before or after you frakked him?"

Kara's defiance was back. "After. Actually I think it was between the second and third times that night? Or was it third and fourth?"

"Are you frakking kidding me?"

"Yeah, Lee. I'm kidding you. We never got around to four. Not that it's any of your damned business. I'll deny it all if you try to drag him into this. I won't cost him his career, so don't even go there. I mean it, Lee. He wasn't at McGee's last night. He's got nothing to do with what happened. Nothing."

"Nothing except maybe giving Reider the idea that you have a soft spot for instructors. Or would that be _hot spot_?"

"Oh, ha, ha. Look, Reider was dogging my case long before Connelly and I ever…got together. I'm telling you Connelly has nothing to do with this. He's a good teacher. I won't cost him his career."

"You should have thought about that before you frakked him. You're a student. He's an instructor. There are very clear lines that are not to be crossed. Those rules are there for a reason, Kara. They're for _your_ protection. Reider was very wrong to do what he did, but so was Connelly."

"Don't even start with me, Lee. And don't you dare mention those two men in the same breath. With Connelly it was totally consensual. He's divorced, and I'm not in any of his classes. And he's totally hot...for a guy his age. And it was as much my doing as his, probably more. Yeah, it was my fault. I made a mistake. I'm very good at screwing up. So get over it."

"It's not _me_ that needs to get over it, Kara. This is your career on the line. And his, too, the minute you get caught. And you will get caught. But," Lee added sarcastically, "don't let good advice from me come between you and your major."

"I'm way ahead of you on that. It only happened that once and it won't happen again. He and I have already talked about it and agreed. I know, it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but it did. Now let it go, Lee. It's not important to this."

"How much does Major Connelly know about Reider harassing you?"

"I've already said that is not even an option. We leave Connelly out of this. Period. End of story."

"Did you tell anybody else about what Reider did?"

Kara shook her head.

"Then maybe you can tell me how we're going to get you off with just a simple D&D?"

"I don't know," Kara said, and this time there was real regret in her voice. "I guess this screw-up is on her way out the door, huh?"

TBC…


	15. Judgment Day

Chapter 15

Judgment Day

Kara arrived at the Admin Building thirty minutes early for her hearing. She just wanted to get it over. She hadn't eaten anything all day and she still felt like she was going to throw up. How was she going to go home and explain this to her mother? Maybe she wouldn't go home. Maybe she would…would…what would she do? She was pacing when Lee finally walked in twenty minutes later.

"Where the frak have you been? I thought I was going to have to go in there by myself."

Lee smiled, as much to cover his own nervousness as to try to calm Kara. "We've still got almost ten minutes. Now remember what I said. If anyone asks you a question, answer as briefly as you can, and tell the truth. You can decline to answer, but don't lie. And don't volunteer anything."

"You've said that enough already. But you leave Connelly out of this. You promised."

"Yeah, I promised and I'm keeping that promise."

"I think I'm going to puke," Kara said suddenly.

"No," Lee grasped her by her upper arms and turned her to face him. Other than their quick handshake the night they had met, and the time he had briefly grabbed her arm to keep her from stumbling, it was the first time he had really touched her. He could feel her arms trembling through the fabric of her uniform. He took a breath.

"Look at me, Kara. No, not down at the floor, look at me...right at my eyes."

Slowly her eyes rose to meet his, and for an irrational moment he wanted to kiss her. To kiss some color into her pale cheeks and some life into her big, beautiful, expressive eyes. He took another deep breath. Gods, this woman got to him in ways he didn't want to admit even to himself.

"You're going to be fine. Do you understand me? Fine. Trust me. I…just trust me."

For the briefest moment she saw something in his eyes and thought he was about to kiss her. Whoa, she was seriously messed up if she thought Lee Adama was thinking about kissing her. But something about his touch calmed her. She drew strength from it, and finally she nodded. The nausea began to recede.

"Ever since I was a little girl I've wanted to fly a Viper. I swear to you if I get out of this, I'm not going to do anything to frak it up ever again. No more drinking at McGee's. I'll study every night and on the weekends, too."

"That's the attitude," Lee said. "Now take a couple of deep breaths." She obeyed and Lee kept hoping that he hadn't lied to her, kept hoping that everything would really be okay because he could tell Kara was wound very tightly right now. He let go of her arms and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

"Chin up, Kara. It'll all be over soon."

She took another deep breath, closed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of."

They stood in silence for the next few minutes until a cadet came out and escorted them to the room where the hearing would take place. After Lee and Kara entered, the cadet withdrew and closed the door behind her. There was a table raised on a low dais set up at the front of the room. Three unsmiling administrators sat behind the table. There was no other furniture in the room.

If Lee could have taken Kara's hand, he would have. Instead they walked to the edge of the dais, saluted, and stood stiffly at attention.

The presiding administrator whose name pin said _Winters_ and whose collar bars indicated he was a colonel shuffled through a few papers in front of him before he looked up over the top of his reading glasses and said, "Cadet Kara Thrace."

"Yes, sir." Her voice was steadier than she expected it to be.

"At ease, Cadets." He looked at Lee. "And you're the Student Advocate? Let's see," he looked back at the form again. "Cadet Lee Adama."

"Yes, sir."

Winters took off the reading glasses and studied him a moment. "Bill Adama's son?"

Lee managed not to grit his teeth. He hadn't seen _that_ coming. "Yes, sir."

The colonel nodded. "I served with your father years ago. Good man. Give him my regards the next time you see him."

"Yes, sir. I will."

Winters put the glasses back on and turned his attention to Kara. "These are some serious charges, Cadet, drunk and disorderly, assaulting an officer who is also an instructor at this Academy. One of your instructors as a matter of fact."

"Yes, sir." Lee had told her not to say anything except in answer to a direct question, but she felt like she needed to acknowledge what Colonel Winter had said.

"Well this is your lucky day. The assault charge has been dropped."

Lee heard Kara's quick intake of breath. Saw her almost sway.

Colonel Winters continued. "Captain Reider came to me late this morning and said he was mistaken, that you did not, in fact, strike him. He said he'd been thinking about the events of the night in question and now admits that he had, and I quote, 'one beer too many.' He claims that the two of you were having, again I quote, 'a heated discussion' about your poor performance on the obstacle course, and that when he stood up, he caught his foot on the rung of his chair, lost his balance and hit his jaw on the edge of the table as he fell. He thinks you may have reached toward him and tried to stop his fall therefore leading him to believe you had struck him. After careful consideration he has now withdrawn his accusation of assault. Since no one else there seems to have seen anything except Captain Reider hitting the floor, I'm asking you. Is that the way it happened, Cadet?"

A few moments passed with only silence from Kara. She didn't know what to say.

"Well, Cadet Thrace? This is your chance to tell your side of it. I'd like to hear it...today, if possible."

"Colonel Winters, sir," Lee spoke up, "By her own admission Cadet Thrace was drunk that night. I've questioned her thoroughly on this matter. She doesn't have a clear recollection of the events as you've just related them to her."

"Is that right, Cadet Thrace?"

Kara finally caught on to what Lee was trying to tell her. "Yes, sir. I was drunk, sir. I'd had more than one beer too many. The whole latter part of that evening is nothing but a big blur to me. I do remember standing at the table talking to Captain Reider about the obstacle course, but not the rest of it. If that's what he says happened, then that's what happened."

"You're sure you don't remember anything else?"

"I don't remember him catching his foot on the chair and falling, no, sir. I really don't." Lee Adama was so damned smart. She hadn't lied. She didn't remember it because it never happened.

"Is there anything else you would like to tell us?"

"Yes, sir. I'd like to say that I'm ashamed of my actions that evening, being drunk and arguing with Captain Reider, and I'd like to apologize to you and to the Academy."

Winters wrote on one of the pages for nearly a minute before he scooped up the papers and aligned their edges against the surface of the table and closed them into a folder. "I feel like there's still something that needs to be said here." He looked at Lee. "Do you have anything to add at this point?"

"I'd like to verify Cadet Thrace's remorse for her behavior on the night in question. I believe the experience has proved to be an extremely valuable lesson to her. She affirmed this to me right before the hearing began. We need Viper pilots with her talents and skills."

"Very well, then. Although it now appears the drunk and disorderly charge stemmed from a misunderstanding, you were, however, still drunk and at the very least, by your own admission and the captain's as well, engaged in an inappropriate verbal confrontation with one of your instructors. This Administrative Tribunal gives you forty demerits for the drunk and disorderly, with one month to walk them off before they become part of your permanent record. During that month you are confined to campus. Any more infractions of _any kind_ this year will result in your immediate expulsion. Do I make myself clear?"

Kara breathed, "Yes, sir."

"We are also assigning another PE teacher to verify that you complete the obstacle course with satisfactory times. You'll receive notification of whom that will be by campus mail within a week."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you understand exactly what walking off demerits involves?"

"Yes, sir. Lee…Cadet Adama has explained everything to me."

Winters turned his attention to Lee. "Tell me, Cadet Adama, how did you come to represent Cadet Thrace?"

"We have a mutual friend, sir. He asked me."

Winters tapped the edge of the folder on the table. "Have you ever though about going to law school after the Academy? I believe you'd make a fine addition to the Admiralty Judge Advocate's staff."

"Uh, no, sir, I haven't."

"You don't want to follow in your grandfather's footsteps, eh? You want to wear the wings like your father?"

"I want to wear the wings, yes, sir"

"I knew your grandfather. I believe you could be as fine a lawyer as he was. If you change your mind, I'll be glad to write a letter of recommendation to law school for you."

"Thank you, sir." Lee smiled.

Winters turned his attention back to Kara. "Cadet Thrace, you've got a fairly good record up to this point. I've heard about your feat in Colonel Burgher's Viper sims. As Cadet Adama stated, the service needs pilots of your caliber. Take my advice. Concentrate more on your studies and less on socializing at McGee's."

Kara saluted smartly. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me, Cadet." Winters stood up. "Thank your Student Advocate. I believe he helped Captain Reider remember what _really_ happened that night. I spoke with the captain several times regarding the case, and up until the time Cadet Adama paid him a visit, it seems he mistakenly thought you'd hit him. If Captain Reider hadn't withdrawn his accusation of assault, this hearing would have had quite a different outcome. Dismissed. Both of you."

TBC…


	16. Kara Gets a Call Sign

Chapter 16

Kara Gets a Call Sign

Kara waited until they were in the hall before she broke away from Lee and ran. He couldn't catch up with her before she went through the building's back exit door.

"Hey, Kara, where are you going?" Lee called. When he opened the stairwell door and looked down, he saw her sitting two steps up from the landing. Her shoulders were shaking, and for a crazy moment Lee thought she was laughing. He thought she had played him and lied to him about Reider. And then he realized that she wasn't laughing, she was crying.

He descended the steps and sat down beside her. Since he had met her, nothing had gotten to him the way her tears now did. Gently he put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her to him and let her cry.

Kara was too emotionally spent to care that she was crying in front of Lee. Something that a few days ago she never would have let happen. "I thought I was…I knew," she choked. "I knew I was expelled. I'd already started packing my stuff."

"Shhhh," he whispered. "I told you it would be okay."

Her head was on his shoulder and he leaned over and kissed her gently on the top of her head. A small piece of the ice wall Kara had built around her heart melted when he did that, and a crazy thought danced through her mind for just a second. _I could love this man_. And then it was gone, washed away by the churning emotional aftermath of her near-expulsion.

When her choking sobs finally subsided, Lee took her chin and turned her face to his. "You're still a cadet, you're still going to be a Viper pilot, and you're still going to kick ass in the sims." He took his thumb and wiped the tears off her cheeks. "You heard the man. We need pilots of your caliber in the service."

She drew a long, shuddering breath. "I owe you my life."

Lee smiled. "That's an exaggeration, Kara."

"No, no, it's not." She pulled away from him. She wasn't used to anybody putting it on the line for her except Karl. They'd had each other's backs so many times, starting from when they were kids. But this was different. This didn't involved fists. She didn't really know how to handle this.

"Why'd you do it?" The question came out a lot rougher than she intended.

"Do what?"

"Risk your career by going to Reider."

"I guess I didn't think of it that way. Risking my career, that is. I looked at it more as quid pro quo."

"What the frak does that mean?"

"Something I picked up from my granddaddy Adama, the lawyer. It means…well let's just say Captain Reider and I traded favors. I explained to him that if he insisted on pressing the assault charge against you, then in order to provide a defense, you and another female cadet were going to tell the tribunal how he'd molested you both. Of course he denied ever touching a cadet, including you, especially you, but I reminded him it didn't have to be true to cast doubt. I told him you already felt like you had nothing to lose, and it might open up a new investigation. I also told him you were definitely going to be punished for the D&D. You would be the one out there walking squares around the quad in front of the whole student body. It didn't take him long to see the light. I think he realized that in the long run, he had the most to lose. So if he dropped the assault charge, the molestation wouldn't be mentioned. A favor for a favor. Quid pro quo. Not perfect, but the best I could come up with."

"Wait a minute. What other girl? I never heard he did it to someone else."

"Neither did I."

Kara stood up and walked to the window on the landing. The frosted glass gave the stairwell a dim, silvery look. Finally she turned around and her voice was tinged with disbelief. "You're telling me that you ran a _bluff_ on Reider?"

Lee rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess that's one way of looking at it."

She exploded. "You're frakking crazy, man. What if he'd called you on it? What if he'd reported you to Colonel Winters? You could have found yourself standing right where I was. You could have been on your way out the door right along with me. Lords of Kobol, Lee. That was just plain frakking stupid."

Lee wished Colonel Winters had kept his mouth shut. Let her think it was all Reider's idea to drop the charge. He knew she was still upset from thinking she was going to be expelled. Nevertheless, he was stung by her outburst and her criticism.

"A simple _thank you_ would have been enough for me. You know you didn't really leave me much choice when it came to saving your ass."

"Well my ass doesn't deserve a guy like you risking yours. I thought that certainly went without saying. Holy frak, Lee. I still can't believe you did something that stupid. I am so not worth it."

"You know, Kara, I just didn't see it that way. Yeah, you might think I played a long shot, but I didn't. Not really. The only way I could have screwed up would have been if you'd lied to me about Reider, and while you have a few faults, I haven't found lying to be one of them."

Kara calmed down. He was right. As usual he was right. "So you figured if he'd done it to me, he'd done it to at least one other cadet."

Lee shrugged. "He's been here a couple of years. It's a logical assumption that you weren't the first. If he picks on females headed for Flight School, he'd have had what we call a _target-rich environment_."

"He'll do it again. Pervy creeps like him don't stop because they're threatened by a cadet. Even one whose last name is Adama."

"Kara, you've got to understand that I never threatened him. I'm not _that_ stupid. As much as it went against my sense of justice, I approached him like I was there to do _him_ a favor. One guy to another sort of thing. That part was harder for me to handle than anything else. I mean a couple of times I thought about what he'd done to you and I just wanted to…yeah…it would have been really easy to bruise his other jaw. But that wouldn't have helped you."

Kara stared at Lee in near disbelief. She had never seen him as a physical person and suddenly she saw a side of him that she had never seen before. For a moment she relished the mental image of Lee slugging Reider. That was a nice image.

"But you're probably right about him doing it again," Lee went on. "If the cadets he molests keep quiet, he'll just get braver every time he gets away with it."

"So what are you saying? That I should rat the perv out? Go to Colonel Winters and tell him that I really did knock Reider on his ass because he's a creep who can't keep his paws to himself? Sacrifice my career to _maybe_ put a question mark on his?"

Suddenly Lee was very tired. The enormity of what he had done settled heavily on him. "I'm not going to say one way or another. Do whatever you want, Kara. You will anyway. I did my job. You're still a cadet. Make the most of it."

"I owe you, Lee. I'll save your life one day. I'll put it on the line for you. That's a promise."

"Sure you will. Oh, I've got a call sign for you if you like it. I was waiting to make sure today went in your favor before I told you. It's Starbuck. You don't have to…I mean unless you like it. It's just something I thought…you see there's this…it's a long story. Anyway, I'm just kind of tossing it out there. You did ask me to think of one for you. So that's what I came up with."

"Starbuck. I like it. I like it a lot. Starbuck. I've always liked stars. Hey, Starbuck and Apollo. What do you think?"

"I like Apollo and Starbuck better."

'Yeah, you would. How'd you come up with it?"

Lee got up and started up the stairs. "That's a story for another day. Don't forget about walking off those demerits. You know you got off easy on that. An off campus D&D is usually sixty. Hey, come on _Starbuck_, let's get out of this gloomy stairwell and get into the sunshine."

"Thanks, _Apollo_, but I need some time to think, somewhere that it's quite and I'm alone. This is as good a place as any. You go ahead. I'll see you around soon. I owe you. I really do. I'll never forget what you did for me today."

"What makes you think I'll let you?"

He was hoping that she would follow him anyway.

But she didn't.

TBC…


	17. Kara Turns Around

Chapter 17

Kara Turns Around

Kara was alone in her room that night unpacking the things she had packed. There was never any question of celebrating. Dana understood why she wouldn't be able to celebrate anything for the rest of the term. And good roommate that she was, Dana seemed to realize that Kara needed some time alone, some time to get herself together. So Dana collected her books and went to the library.

When the phone rang, she figured it was the new guy Dana had started dating. She was wrong.

"Hi, Kara," Hugh Connelly said.

"Oh, hi."

"Is this a bad time?"

"No, I'm alone."

"I just heard about what happened today. Why the frak didn't you call me and let me know what was going on?"

"It was ugly and I didn't want to involve you. Anyway, everything turned out okay. I didn't get expelled like I thought I was going to. Come to think of it, that might not have been so bad, huh? Me expelled. As in no longer a student."

"Kara, don't even joke about something like that."

"Yeah, you're right. It's not like you'd give up your girlfriend. She's really beautiful by the way."

"What? Kara, stop it. Are you okay? Really, are you?"

"Lee Adama risked his career for me. Risked his bright, third-in-his-class career to save my ass and I don't deserve it."

That shut Major Connelly up for a minute. Finally he said, "Sounds to me like maybe there's a lot more going on here than you're saying. With you and Adama."

"No," Kara said. "That's what makes no sense. None. There is nothing going on with me and Lee Adama. Nothing. I just can't figure it out at all. I mean one minute he's getting me out of hack and chewing my butt out and the next he's handing me his sunglasses because I had such a bitch of a headache. Then he's telling me there's no hope, that I'm going to get expelled, and then he's going to Reider and getting him to drop the assault charge. Nobody's ever done anything like that for me before. I don't get it."

She heard Connelly take a deep breath and let it out. "I probably get it better than you do, Kara. So, are you going to tell me what happened?"

"It's long and it's ugly and I just can't do it tonight. I got off easy, forty demerits for the D&D, and Reider got off with nothing except maybe the humiliation of going to Colonel Winter and saying he'd made a mistake so he was dropping the assault charge, which was a lie."

"A lie. Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you really did hit him? He didn't trip over his chair?"

"No, he didn't trip over his frakking chair. I hit him. And I had a good reason. Someday I'll tell you the whole story. Promise. Just not tonight. Look, thanks for calling me. It means a lot to me to know you cared enough to call."

"Frak, Kara. I figured Reider had lied about you hitting him."

"Nope, no lie."

"What is it that you're not telling me? Reider did something to you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, Connelly. Let's just say he deserved what he got. And more. I'll tell you everything, but not tonight."

"Oh, hell, Kara. Did he rape you? Please, gods, tell me he didn't rape you."

"No, but he tried. I busted his nose and that stopped him. Only you know what was so pathetic about it, I don't think the stupid jerk thought he was trying to rape me. I think he thought he was seducing me . Like grabbing me from behind and shoving his hand down my pants is part of the fine art of seduction. He is a seriously delusional sick man."

"If I go to Colonel Winters…"

"No, the answer is no. It's over. I don't want you involving yourself in this."

"I know what he did involved me and that's really eating at me. And the reason you didn't tell me was to protect me."

"Yeah, maybe you were part of it, but not all of it, not nearly all of it. Someday I'll tell you the whole story, but not tonight. Look, I'm really tired. I haven't slept for a couple of nights. I'm going to hit my rack early."

"Okay, Kara. But don't underestimate how much I care about you. Or how far I would go for you either."

Kara hung up and tried to put everything that had happened in the last few days out of her mind. Right now she did not need another man doing anything for her or risking anything for her, certainly not one of the best and most dedicated teachers at the Academy. She had demerits to walk off and a career that just a few hours ago had been over and now was hers again. She'd been given a second chance, a gift from the gods or a gift from Lee Adama and Colonel Winters and frak, maybe even Captain Reider. Whoever or however, it was a gift. Her gift, to make the best of. It was time she pulled it together and made something of her life.

That night she slept the best she had in a long time.

TBC…

**AN: **I sometimes question how much has been made of Starbuck's issues with authority and obeying orders. Yes, there is that side to her, thanks in part to her abusive mother, but if she were as undisciplined and insubordinate as many seem to think she is, she would never have made it in the military…anybody's military. So much of it, I think, is just her reputation and is not all based on fact...at least prior to the Miniseries when this fic takes place. She's certainly participated in her share of misbehavior, but she's now learning to curb that side of her personality because she really does want to become a pilot.

Okay, Starbuck is doing what some of the rest of us did in our late teens and early twenties…grow up a little bit and start taking responsibility for her actions. She's smart enough to know that she's been given a second chance and will likely not get a third. It doesn't mean she's going to be an angel for the rest of her life, or that she will never question what she is told to do, just that she's learned some actions have very undesirable consequences and she's going to be more careful in the future. (Until Saul Tigh, of course.)


	18. Done With Demerits

Chapter 18

Done with Demerits

For almost a month Lee avoided all the places he thought he might run into Kara. In retrospect he realized he had done an incredibly stupid thing in going to Captain Reider, but he had done it willingly to save Kara's career. He didn't need to be doing stupid things for anyone. He could imagine what his father would say if he knew. His safest bet was to put an end to whatever screwy relationship he and Kara had going right now and concentrate on his own career. Kara Thrace had really gotten under his skin in a way no other woman ever had, and at this point in his life, that was not good.

Karl had alluded to a rough childhood. Well he understood unhappy childhoods. His wasn't the easiest. It wasn't too bad when his dad was there. But when his father was gone, his mother sometimes drank too much and… Frak, he didn't want to start thinking about those dark times. At least he'd had Zak.

He had to stop thinking about Kara, move on with his own career, and leave Kara to her own fate. He should have known that wasn't going to happen. He should have realized that once the threads of their lives were entwined that they would weave together at points in time from then on.

Almost a month to the day from when he had left her in a stairwell in the Admin building, he was taking a shortcut between the gym and his dorm and ran into her. He could tell she had been walking off demerits because she was wearing full gear including a helmet. He wondered how many she'd walked off by now because he knew cadets were limited to three hours marching a day.

The day was very cold, the temperature hovering just above freezing, and a light rain had been falling since midmorning. If it kept up after twilight, the Academy would see it's first snowfall of the season.

Kara was wet despite the waterproof poncho that she wore over her gear, and Lee could tell she was cold. Her face was pale and her lips nearly colorless. Her teeth were chattering when she spoke to him. "H-Hi L-L-Lee."

"What are you doing walking off demerits on a day like this?"

"G-g-good to s-s-see you, t-too."

"Come on," he took her arm and started propelling her toward the cafeteria. "Do you want to wind up with pneumonia?" _Gods, this woman really was her own worst enemy_.

He tucked his head down and they didn't speak again until they were inside the building. Mid-afternoon was not a busy time. He helped her off with the wet poncho and her pack and seated her at a table close to a heat register. She took off the helmet and pushed her hands through her damp hair. Why did Lee always see her at her worst?

"Coffee?"

"Hot cider if they have it. With a cinnamon candy stick. And a big shot of brandy."

Lee shook his head as he walked to the serving line. He returned a few minutes later with hot cider for her and a cup of coffee for himself. "Here," he said. "Hot cider with a cinnamon stick. Sorry, they were out of brandy. Said to come back tomorrow."

She took the cider and grinned, "Right. Thanks." For half a minute she just sat with her hands wrapped around the cup. The shivering subsided. "Hey, I'm done. I just did my last trip around the quad. My last two hours. I walked off all forty demerits in twenty-six days."

"You know you didn't need to risk your health to do it."

"Have you every just wanted to get something over with. To put it behind you?"

"Sure."

"Well that's how I felt about those damned demerits. I just wanted to get them done. It's been a long, dry run." She grinned and did a little dancing wiggle in her chair.

"Meaning?" Lee asked.

"Meaning now I can party. McGee's here I come."

Kara didn't know why she said it, but he looked so serious sitting there, too serious, and she was not about serious right now. She was in a good mood, a mood to play.

Lee stared at her for a few seconds and then exploded. "I don't frakking believe you. After what you just went through. You frakking promised. If I had thought…if I had any idea…"

Kara burst out laughing. "Lee, Lee, I'm just kidding. I'm playing with you. I'm going to drink this hot cider and then I'm going back to the dorm and stand in a hot shower until my feet thaw out. Then I'm going to take a nap and then I'm going to study. What else would a good little cadet be doing? End of term exams start in two weeks. Just because I'm in the bottom half of my class doesn't mean I don't sometimes hit the books. In fact for the last month that's all I've been doing. No beers. No McGee's. No majors."

Lee looked down and slowly began shaking his head. "Okay, all right, you got me. I fell for it." He looked up. "So, aside from trying hard for a case of hypothermia, how've you been?"

"Better if I'd seen you a little more often."

"Still playing with me, Kara?"

"Would I do that?" She looked up at him over the rim of her cup and their eyes locked.

He was suddenly aware of something almost electric between them, and a hot corkscrew of desire twisted into his gut. Not the first time he'd felt it in her presence, but it had never been this strong before. He tried to cover it by saying nonchalantly, "How would I know? I've never had a clue what goes on in that head of yours."

"What makes you think I do?"

She took the cinnamon candy stick and swirled it around in the cider before she put it in her mouth and slowly pulled it out enjoying the taste of the bitter cider and tart, sweet candy mixing on her tongue.

"Oh, frak, Kara, don't do that."

"Do what?"

Lee looked away. "What you're doing to that…that stick of candy."

Kara felt it, too, as the current jumped between them. Damn, where had that come from, the desire that suddenly arrowed through her? She dropped the cinnamon candy stick back into her cup like it had turned molten in her hand.

"I, uh, didn't think how that looked…so yeah…sorry…I'm not trying to…I wasn't thinking." She stammered and squirmed in her chair. What was it about Lee that made her suddenly want to…oh frak, made her want to get out of her chair and…and slowly do to him what she had just been doing to that stick of candy. And that was just for starters. Was this something new or had it been there all along? All along, probably. Hadn't she been thinking about Lee that night with Connelly?

Desperate to change the subject she asked, "What are you doing over winter break? Two whole weeks away from here."

He forced himself to look at her again. When he did, he had mostly gotten himself under control. He took another sip of coffee and cleared his throat. "I'm going to see my mother for a couple of days. Then Zak and I are going to do some serious skiing."

"Zak? That's a funny name for a girlfriend."

"Zak's my brother. But my girlfriend's going, too. In fact we're staying at her chalet at the ski resort. Her family's place. One of them."

"Oh. Still seeing the bartender?"

"Yeah."

"She has a ski chalet? I didn't know bartenders made _that_ kind of money."

"Her family's very well off. So what about you? What are you doing over winter break?"

"Going home with my roommate."

"Not going home to see your parents?"

"Nope. My dad split a long time ago. Mom has a boyfriend I'm not too anxious to see again."

"So where's home to your roommate?"

"Her parents manage a little family resort on Picon's South Bay. It'll be warm, sandy beaches, cold drinks and hot boys for us for two whole weeks."

For a moment Lee pictured Kara in a very small bikini, and a guy who looked like Major Connelly rubbing suntan lotion on her naked back. He was surprised at how much the thought bothered him. "I thought you were giving up that sort of thing, Kara."

"I'm giving up drinking at McGee's every night. I never said I was going to become a teetotaler or take a vow of celibacy. What's the matter, Lee? Sounds like you're jealous."

Lee almost choked on a swallow of coffee. "Jealous? Yeah, right. I'm going to be jealous of a hard-drinking party girl who can't keep her pants up or her hands off the nearest available major."

For the briefest instant Lee saw pain in her eyes. And then it was gone. Her chin came up in a quick, defiant move even as her eyes hardened with a swiftness that surprised him.

"So how come you risked your career to save this party girl's ass? Excuse me, this _hard-drinking_ party girl's ass. If that's what you think about me, how come Apollo laid it on the line for Starbuck? Tell me that?"

_Because you've gotten under my skin like no other woman ever has_._ Because without even touching me you had me so turned on a minute ago that I could have frakked you up against the wall right here in the cafeteria. Because you make me do stupid things like going to an instructor and threatening him…yeah, I don't care how I try to call that one or how nicely I did it, I did threaten him with revealing his dirty little secret of molesting cadets._

But he couldn't tell her any of that so he said, "Just doing my job as your Student Advocate."

"You know something. I'm not buying that anymore. You went way beyond what you had to do as my Student Advocate." Kara looked at him. "It wasn't really about me, was it?"

"What? Who else would it have been about? Who was about to get expelled for punching an instructor?"

"You know that has been bugging me since you did it, and now I've finally figured it out. It was about _him_. About Reider. About sticking it to _him_. And it was about _you_. About proving how damned much smarter you are than he is."

"You're frakking crazy."

"No. You _knew_ he'd do what you said. Oh, I'm sure you approached him oh so nice, because that's just who you are, but you don't get it. Even that wouldn't have mattered. You're an _Adama_. You're the son of _Commander_ William Adama. Reider would have been stupid to say _no_ to you."

"Like I said, you're frakking crazy. I don't get off on trying to prove I'm smart to anybody, and I've for sure never traded on my name or my father's rank."

"You don't have to. That must have been some rush. Watching Reider cave. Watching an officer and an instructor cave right before your eyes."

"Now you sound like you're feeling sorry for him when all you've done until now is want to kick his ass. I thought you of all people would have been glad to see him taken down a notch. He deserves a lot worse for what he did to you. A lot worse."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I still despise him. He's pathetic and weak and perverted and he uses his rank and his position to push people around, push female cadets around. But you know something, I understand him. I understand him because he's such a screw-up and I'm a screw-up."

"Kara, you're not a…"

"Yes I am," She interrupted him. "And just to prove it, I was stupid enough to think you did it for _me,_ that you put your career on the line for _me_. Only a complete screw-up would believe something that stupid."

"Kara, I..."

She stood and picked up her pack. "Don't bother denying it. See you around, Lee. Thanks for the drink." She grabbed the cinnamon candy stick out of the cider, shoved it defiantly in her mouth, and walked away, leaving the unfinished drink on the table. And Lee Adama feeling like a complete idiot.

Oh, frak. Talk about screwing up. How badly had he screwed that up? He knew he should go after her and tell her how wrong she was. He _had_ done it for her. He shouldn't have made that crack about her and the major. It had been petty and she hadn't done anything to deserve it. Could he be that jealous? What the frak? Was he was trying to get back at her for getting him so turned on earlier? Whatever the reason, he knew he should apologize and try to make it right.

But he didn't.

TBC…

**AN: **In the previous chapter I tried to show the beginnings of the friendship that would be Starbuck and Apollo. In this chapter I have tried to show the difficulties Lee and Kara have in dealing with the other emotions and feelings they have for each other. Lee's ability to instantly zero in on the one thing he knew would hurt Kara comes, no doubt, from years of his mother's verbal abuse. He learned from her.

And I was trying to show, too, Kara's inability to trust her gut feeling when it comes to love. Deep down she knows Lee went to Reider for her, but she wouldn't let him see it because at this point in her life she regards trust as a weakness, again due to her own mother's physical and emotional abuse. Kara is good at coming up with reasons why Lee would not have put it on the line for her, even if she only half-way believes what she is saying. She also has obvious deep issues with self-worth, just a Lee does.


	19. Invitation to a Dance

Chapter 19

Invitation to a Dance

Winter break came and went. Lee and Zack had a great time skiing. There was a natural competition between them, but Zack, two years younger, laid back and easy going, rarely pushed himself to try to win their impromptu races down the mountain or their card games that went on into the wee hours.

Things had gone pretty well with Gianne, too, until he'd mentioned Kara and the Viper sims once too often to Zak, and Gianne had told him to sleep on the couch. Nevertheless, it was still a good break from school, and Lee was sorry when it was over and he went back to the Academy and Zak back to the junior college where he was in his second year.

Back in class Lee applied himself to his last semester of studies. He was doing great, better than he had hoped, but his dedication to his books extracted a price on his relationship with Gianne. In mid-April, two weeks before the senior dance, they had split up in an embarassing public scene that he would just as soon forget.

He felt like his failure to give her an engagement ring for her birthday in March had started it. She had been asking him since winter break when they were going to _take their relationship to the next level_, and he had been telling her he wasn't ready for _the next level_. Things hadn't been good for them in a long time, most of the year, in fact. Gianne had a temper and lately it seemed like more and more he had been on the receiving end of it.

The breakup itself had been preceded, ironically enough, by an attempt on his part to make up for how much time he'd been putting in his studies. He had taken her to a nice restaurant, ordered champagne, complimented her on her new dress. Everything had been going great…until he'd had his third glass of champagne and accidentally called her Kara.

He'd wiped most of Gianne's glass of champagne off his face, but he'd worn the rest of it back to the Academy on his shirt and tie. That had not been pretty. Not to mention the way she'd stood up in the restaurant and called him a few choice names, _'cheating son of bitch'_ being the one that she had used the most, _'lying bastard'_ being the other. The irony of the whole situation was that he'd been innocent of what she'd accused him of, unless he counted the number of times he'd dreamed about Kara or thought about her.

He wished he could say he was sorry to see the relationship with Gianne end, but he wasn't. He was just sorry that it had ended in such pain for her. He had never intended to hurt her, never intended to _'just use her for sex'_, which was another one of her accusations. He _had_ cared about her, but he wasn't ready to commit himself to marriage and a family just yet. Hell, he wasn't sure he would ever want to do that.

He hadn't seen Kara except at a distance for nearly four months. He finally came to the conclusion that she was avoiding him. He didn't blame her. She hadn't deserved his jealousy-inspired comment. He should have apologized a long time ago. He should still apologize.

On the Friday before the dance on Saturday night, he left his dorm early for an afternoon class and found himself at the quad nearly half an hour before he had to be in the classroom. He used to see Kara at that time of the day crossing the quad, and told himself that maybe today was the day he would apologize. If he saw her, then, he was going swallow his pride and apologize.

He sat down on one of the stone benches against the memorial wall and leaned back watching the students from behind his sunglasses. When fifteen minutes went by and he hadn't seen her, he closed his eyes. The sun was warm on his face and his thoughts began to drift. He was only vaguely aware when someone sat down beside him.

Kara saw him the minute she got to the edge of the quad. He was sitting on a bench by himself, leaning back against the wall. _Okay, just do it_, she told herself. She walked over and stood beside him for a minute, waiting for him to speak, but he didn't even acknowledge her. Then she leaned a little closer and realized that behind his sunglasses, his eyes were closed.

For four months she had tried to get this man out of her mind. He'd hurt her, but he'd also saved her career. Whatever his motive for doing it might have been, she owed him. He'd graduate in a couple of weeks and then he'd be gone from her life. Time to make peace. She sat down beside him.

"Hi, Lee." Kara's voice penetrated his reverie.

He didn't open his eyes right away, but he smiled. "Hi, Kara. How've you been?"

"Good. I pulled my class rank up a couple of places at the end of first term. Of course a perfect score in Basic Flight plus extra credit for three perfect sims helped a lot. If I work really hard next year, I might just make it out of the bottom half of my class by graduation."

Lee finally opened his eyes, took off his sunglasses and looked at her. Four months and the sight of her could still start his pulse racing. "That's great, Kara. You know I thought you'd written me out of your life."

"Now why would I do that? Because you insulted me and didn't apologize? Because you can be the greatest guy in the world? And the biggest jerk?"

"I think that about covers it. If it's not too late to apologize, then I apologize. It was wrong of me to say what I did to you that day in the cafeteria and I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. And I won't give you any more grief about it. So, will I see you at the dance? Are you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?"

"No."

"No, I won't see you, or no, you aren't going to introduce me to her?"

"You won't see me because I'm not going, and I won't be introducing you to my girlfriend because we broke up."

"No kidding. I'm sorry. Really I am. When?"

"Couple of weeks ago."

"And you haven't asked anybody else, yet? You should still be able to get a date even at the zero hour. Hot guy like you."

"Are you offering to go with me, Kara?"

Her heart skipped a beat. "I've kind of already got a date. I mean not a date, really, but I'm going with someone."

"Not a date but you're going with someone. Want to explain that?"

"I'm going with Karl."

"Oh, that calls for even more explanation. I thought you and Karl both said you were just friends. When did this…other develop?"

"We are just friends. You see Karl has a huge crush on someone he met a couple of weeks ago at McGee's, a first-year, really pretty girl. They've dated a couple of times since then and he is really hung up on her. He asked her to the dance, but she'd already told another guy she'd go with him, so Karl asked me to go just so he wouldn't look like a loser going alone. So that's why it's not a date, really. Once we get to the dance, he'll ditch me."

"That doesn't sound like such a nice thing to do."

Kara shrugged. "I'd do the same thing to him if the situation were reversed. Hey, why don't the three of us go together? Just friends, you know. Then we can…maybe…dance or something…after Karl ditches me. I mean you don't want to miss your senior dance now do you?"

Lee glanced at his watch. He had five minutes to get to class. He stood up.

"I'll meet you two on the steps outside. What time does it start?"

Kara stood and realized that she was in his space again. He didn't move. It felt good being this close to him again.

"Eight o'clock. Promise, Lee?"

"Promise, Kara. So, are you my friend again?"

"I never stopped being your friend."

"You could have fooled me," he grinned.

"And whose fault was that?" She smiled back at him.

As he stared across the quad, the day looked a lot brighter and he found himself starting to look forward to the next night. Gods, it felt so good to know she didn't hate him. It felt so good to see her smile like that. It felt good to know she was still his friend.

TBC…


	20. Dancing in the Dark

Chapter 20

Dancing in the Dark

Saturday evening when Lee Adama got back from the gym, his roommate Marty was already in his dress grays and polishing his shoes.

"Aren't you doing that backwards? Shouldn't you do the shoes first?" Lee asked as he took his own dress uniform out of the closet. His own shoes had been polished the night before while Marty was out somewhere.

"Hey, I get the job done," Marty answered. "What are you doing? You said you weren't going to the dance."

"I changed my mind. Give me a minute and we'll walk over together."

Marty looked embarrassed as he put the shoe polish back in his kit. "I'm meeting somebody, okay. You'll have to promise you won't say anything."

"Meeting someone? Are you trying to tell me you have a date?"

Marty shrugged.

Lee thought of his own situation with Kara but decided to press the issue anyway.

"It wouldn't be Stephanie Raymos would it?" Lee named the cadet who had playfully harassed Marty all semester in chemistry lab. He knew from Marty's embarrassed look and stammered reply that he had guessed right.

"Hey, she asked me, okay. I'm just doing her a favor. And you just shut up about it. So you going all by your lonesome?"

"Not exactly. Somebody asked me, too. I'm meeting her there."

"Who?"

Lee thought for a few seconds and then realized that Marty would see them together later anyway. "Kara Thrace."

"No frakking way, man. You are the biggest liar. I know about eighteen guys who asked her and she turned them all down. And you're telling me she asked you?"

"Yep," Lee grinned. "She was waiting for the best."

"You are so full of shit," Marty said smugly as Lee adjusted his sash in the mirror and ran a comb through his hair. "I'll bet you fifty cubits. I'll bet you a hundred that I will _not_ see you with Kara Thrace."

"You're on," Lee said without turning around, "for a hundred." He couldn't stop smiling.

He saw Marty's expression reflected in the mirror. For the first time Marty looked worried.

...

Lee stood on the steps outside the Administration building where the dance was being held in the assembly room. For the dance the rows of folding chairs had been removed and a dance band setup on the low stage. It was 8:20 and still no sign of Kara or Karl. Fifteen minutes after Marty's date had arrived and they had gone in. Lee was about to give up and go back to his dorm when he saw Karl and what looked like another shorter guy coming across the quad.

As they got closer, though, he could see that it wasn't another guy, it was Kara in her dress uniform just like Karl. All the other female cadets had taken the opportunity to wear dresses, long, short and all lengths in between. But not Kara.

She did look different, though, and he finally realized that it was her hair, which looked fixed for once, and, gods, she was actually wearing makeup. Even when soaking wet and walking off demerits, Kara was pretty. Tonight she was beautiful. Gods, she was so beautiful he stood staring at her, unable to think of anything to say.

"What?" She said when she and Karl got to the top of the steps. "You don't like my party dress? After I spent so much time picking it out."

Finally Lee found his voice. "I'll let you know when I see it. Hi Karl."

Karl said, "Lee." And then pointed sideways at Kara. "We're late because she was fixing her hair and putting on makeup. She's even wearing perfume. Can you believe it? I guess when it's something you're doing for the first time in your life it's bound to take longer."

"Shut the frak up, Karl," Kara punched his arm hard, feeling her cheeks start to burn.

"Ow!" Agathon said and jumped around behind Lee as Kara went at him again.

"Whoa," Lee grabbed her. Yeah, she was wearing perfume, something sweet and faintly exotic.

Kara got herself under control and Lee let her go. She adjusted her uniform. "Hey, Karl, you're the one always telling me to comb my hair or something. And when I do…gods. Let's get inside so you can go find that little first-year you've got such a hard-on for."

They entered the dance together, Kara in the middle with an arm linked through Lee on one side and Karl on the other.

The dance committee had done a wonderful job with the decorations. Hundreds of silvery streamers looped from the ceiling and thousands of tiny white lights were twined about the tall columns. Above them three big globes of multi-colored lights rotated slowly.

"Wow," Kara breathed and turned to Lee. "Now aren't you glad you didn't miss this?"

"Yeah, Kara. I really am."

Karl leaned toward them to be heard over the music. "I'm going to cruise around the room. You two will be okay?"

"Sure, Karl, go ahead," Kara said and gave him a little thumbs-up gesture. "Don't be afraid to cut in. You know she'd rather be with you. Hey, sorry about the arm. I hope I didn't leave a bruise."

Karl rubbed his arm. "You did, but I've had worse. Let that be a lesson to you, Lee. Don't make her mad." He was grinning as he walked away.

Kara turned to Lee. "See, told you he would ditch me…us."

"Well maybe if you hadn't started beating him up."

"Oh, that was nothing. I just have to remind him from time to time when to keep his mouth shut. Okay. I worked up a thirst walking across campus. How about some punch?"

Together they walked to the refreshment table. On the way he saw Marty and his date dancing. The sight of Lee and Kara together was enough to make Marty stop and stare.

"Let's step outside where we can hear," Kara raised her voice to be heard over the band after they had each gotten a cup of punch. He followed her across the crowded dance floor and out through the double doors onto the terrace that ran the length of the ballroom. There were only a few other couples out there because the evening was too chilly for the skimpy dresses of most of the girls. Nevertheless, Kara kept walking until she was at the deserted far end of the terrace.

The land adjacent to the Admin building dropped down to the playing fields and the lake. A nearly full moon was rising and the light on the water was sparkling silver. The only light on the terrace came from the moonlight and from the filtered light coming through the curtained windows of the ballroom. Normally when cadets came out on the terrace during a dance, it was to make out.

"Hey, Kara, you're not getting me out here in the dark so you can take advantage of me, are you?" Lee joked. He could only hope.

"That must be my motive. Me being such a romantic soul and all. Here, hold this a minute." She thrust her cup into his hand. She knew he was going to freak, but she was going to do it anyway.

"What?"

Kara bent over, pulled up her pants leg, and when she stood up again, there was a small flask in her hand. "Hold those cups still."

"Kara, what the frak? You know whatb willl happen if you…if _we_ get caught on campus with that stuff? This isn't McGee's."

"Just a few drops." Before he could protest further, she had added the contents of the flask to their cups of punch. It was definitely more than a few drops. More like a few ounces. Each.

"Lee, you are so…you are such a tight-ass sometimes. Relax. This stuff is pure and odorless. And there isn't enough in this little thing," she wiggled the flask at him, "to hardly feel it."

She bent over, pulled up her pants leg again, and the flask disappeared. "Besides, it's senior dance. Admin expects a little of this. It's not like we're going to get stumbling-around drunk on this little bit of alcohol." She took her cup from him and raised it. "Cheers."

"I'll make sure my father understands that when I'm explaining to him how I managed to get expelled two weeks short of graduating." Lee said dryly. "Well, Dad, it was senior dance, and there wasn't enough in the flask to hardly feel it, but I got expelled anyway. I thought Admin would understand, but hey, they just wouldn't make an exception to their _No Alcohol on Campus _Policy. Four years down the drain and all that. So sorry. Maybe I can get a job building Vipers instead of flying them."

"You are such a hoot," Kara said as she took a sip of punch. "Ummm, it was good to start with. I just made it better. So don't freak on me. Drink up the evidence."

Lee drank. It _was_ good. Really strong, but good. "So tell me about the party dress."

Normally Kara would have been embarrassed to relate the story, ashamed to admit she didn't have enough money to buy a dress, but not tonight, not with Lee. The only thing she wouldn't tell him was why she didn't ask her mother for the money. It wasn't that her mother didn't have it. She just didn't believe that dances were a necessary part of graduating from the Academy. Besides, what did it matter if she told Lee? He'd seen her at her worst, hung over in the brig, blubbering in the stairwell, soaking wet after walking off demerits. No wonder he had been nearly speechless when he'd seen her tonight looking decent for once.

"Okay, I didn't have any plans to be here tonight. Dances aren't my thing. I never went to one in high school. Then Karl told me that his plans were all screwed up because this girl he's crushing on turned him down. But he really wanted to go to his senior dance, so I told him I'd take pity on him and go with him. He was cool with that, even when I told him I don't own a dress and had no money to buy one, and my roommate had a date so I couldn't borrow hers. Hey, it's not like I can stroll down to McGee's anymore and join a friendly little triad game. Colonel Winters wouldn't approve."

"You know something, Kara. I'd really like to see you in a dress."

"Not going to happen. I mean really, Lee, do I look like the dress type to you?"

"You could be. I think. On the right occasion."

"Right. Well, sorry, this isn't that occasion. So why did you and the bartender split?"

"Long story. Mainly my lack of attention and commitment." _But mostly because I screwed up and called her your name_.

"Commitment. Yeah, that's a biggie, isn't it? So I guess it was mostly about sex to you and she wanted a ring and vows. Right?"

"Something I wasn't ready to give her. The ring and vows. I mean that is what women want, isn't it?"

"Don't lump all of us into that bucket, Lee."

"I'm not going to go there with you, Kara. Believe me, you are not like any woman I've _ever_ known."

"I didn't exactly think I was."

Lee finished the punch. The first of the alcohol hit his brain like a rolling wave. "Not that it's a bad thing. You being different, I mean. It's not. I wouldn't be interested if you weren't. Like you are, I mean. Different. I mean different isn't the same thing as bad. Sometimes different is good."

"Are you trying to tell me something? Because you're going to have to translate what you just said."

"I think I'm trying to say that dress or no dress, you look great tonight, Kara, and I'm really glad to be here with you."

"Lords of Kobol, Lee, don't go getting all mushy on me." Kara felt herself starting to blush again. "I won't know what to do. I'm mostly used to you insulting me or telling me what a screw-up I am."

"I guess I've done that a few times, but I'll try to abstain tonight."

"Thanks. That's decent of you."

They stood in awkward silence for a few minutes while Kara finished her punch.

The band began playing a slow song. Out on the terrace the volume was just right to hear the music and still hear each other talk.

"That song," Lee gestured toward the ballroom. "When I was fifteen my mother made me take dancing lessons, social dancing lessons, once a week, and the instructor loved that song. Every week for twelve whole weeks she made the class dance at least once to that song. Frak, I can't believe I just told to you that I took dancing lessons."

"Wait until I tell Karl. A future Viper jock took dance lessons. Do you tango? Waltz? What's your favorite?"

"Please, Kara."

"I'm just playing with you," she grinned. "Your secret is safe with me. I love that song. It's my favorite song ever. I can remember my father sitting at the piano playing that song when I was a little girl. He'd say, 'Do you like this one, Baby Girl? I'm playing it just for you.' He was still living with us then…never mind. I'm sorry that having to dance to it week after week ruined it for you."

"It didn't. I actually have fond memories of those classes. There was a really cute little blond, you see, and she and I," he grinned and raised his eyebrows, "practiced a lot in private. And not always in the vertical position."

"That's enough, I get the picture."

"Just playing with you, Kara."

"Oh, frak you." Then she smiled. "Okay, I deserved that. So you've got a thing for blonds?"

He did a little dance step. "And if I do?"

"Are you asking me to dance with you?"

He held out his hand. "Want to dance, Kara? I mean you do dance, don't you?"

"Yeah, Lee, I dance. I used to practice in front of the mirror with a broom. That's my secret. So show me how good you are."

Lee put a hand on her waist as Kara's slid her left arm around his neck. He took her free hand and brought it to his chest. The contact felt hot and formal at the same time.

"Since you said you didn't go to dances, then I'm the best you've ever danced with."

"Oh, yeah, right. Prove you're better than my broom."

"I think I'm up for that challenge." After a few awkward steps he tightened his grip on her waist and pulled her closer. "Forget the broom and let me lead, Kara. It'll work better that way."

She relaxed. Their steps were soon in perfect synch. Being in his arms felt good. Better than good. She didn't mean to say it out loud, but she heard herself say, "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, Kara." He couldn't believe he'd admitted that to her either. What was this? Confess to Kara night? What had she put in his punch, some kind of truth serum?

She got a little bolder. "Ever listen to the words to that song?"

"I didn't know it had words. The dance instructor didn't play any song versions with words because she said if we were listening to words we weren't listening to her."

"Every time my heart beats, you must hear it saying, just how much I want you, just how much I care."

"What?"

"The words to your song. The name of the song is _Every Time my Heart Beats._"

"Frak, Kara. I thought you were telling _me_…never mind, that punch must have been stronger than I thought."

"You thought I was telling you what? Oh…" her voice trailed off. Why had she said it then? What was she telling him? Oh, man. She had not anticipated this at all. Maybe that flask had been a bad idea. She'd wanted to dull her case of nerves and loosen him up. Not unhinge her tongue so she was babbling like an idiot. Lords of Kobol, she hadn't counted on this at all, on feeling like this. She thought the only effect he had on her was physical. She hadn't counted on _these_ feelings.

She slid both arms around his neck and he put his around her waist as they continued dancing. She could feel his heart beating. Or was it her own?

Maybe it was the alcohol, but Lee suddenly saw how straight the path had been from that night at McGee's when she had pushed a chair in his direction to this moment. Everything had been leading them to this. And he hadn't seen it coming at all. Or had he? Right now he couldn't even think. He could feel her body, even through both their uniforms, her breasts against his chest, the soft curve of her hip beneath his hand. He felt himself harden against her.

"Kara?" he managed to say.

"Ummm?" The sound against his ear was a question and the softest of sighs.

The band was still playing, but they were no longer dancing. Kara was aware of how silvery the moonlight was and the citrus-smell of his aftershave and how hard he was against her, and she waited until she knew he wasn't going to make the first move. Until she knew it was up to her.

"Lee, if you want to kiss me," she whispered. "You don't need to ask. Just kiss me."

And finally he did.

TBC…

**AN:** I think RDM said that Kara and Lee's first "real kiss" was the one on New Caprica in UB. (He must have forgotten about Scar or else didn't count it). Actually their first real kiss happened at the Academy. They just never told him about it, but of course I'm letting my fellow shippers in on their secret.


	21. A Kiss and a Graduation and a Kiss

Chapter 21

A Kiss and a Graduation and a Kiss

How long their kiss lasted was never a clear memory for either of them.

What Lee did remember was how warm and soft Kara's lips and tongue were as they moved against his, how she wasn't holding anything back, the way she had just melted into him, how much he wanted her…oh, gods how much he wanted her.

What Kara remembered was how tightly Lee was holding her, the gentle hesitancy with which the kiss had started and how swiftly it had deepened, how turned on it was now getting her, how she would just have to apologize to Karl when she broke that long-ago promise she had made to him about the Commander's son.

But more clearly than anything else, they both remembered how the kiss ended.

"Cadets," a man's voice cut into the oblivion of their desire. "While I know the Academy does tolerate same-sex relationships, some discretion is expected. This is hardly the time or the place."

Kara recovered first and turned in Lee's arms keeping her body in front of his. No way she would let this old buzzard see the state Lee was in. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize my date looked that much like a girl. But he is a guy. I'll swear to it. Yes, sir. I'll swear to it."

Colonel Winters sputtered. "Well…well. Cadet Thrace, is it? And Cadet _Adama_?"

"Yes, sir," Lee said, trying to get his breath and his brain working at the same time. "We apologize…I apologize…I started this…my fault."

"Don't apologize," Colonel Winters cut him off and chuckled. "My mistake. I must need to get my eyes checked. Carry on," he waved as he turned and strolled back down the terrace, on patrol to make sure the few couples out there kissing didn't get too carried away. "Just be reasonable about it," he called back over his shoulder.

Kara waited until he was out of hearing range before she nearly collapsed laughing. "Oh, Lee, oh my gods, Lee, oh my frakking gods," she choked. "Something tells me I'm never going to forget this night."

But Lee wasn't at a point just yet where he could laugh. He walked over to the balustrade at the edge of the terrace and leaned against the wide stone top. Willing his heart to stop pounding, willing his desire back into some hidden place, he leaned partway over the edge and looked down. The breeze came up through the trees, ruffled the moon's silver reflection on the lake, and brought the sweet smell of spring flowers to him, sultryand exotic. Or was it the faint trace of her perfume?

Kara walked over and stood beside him, leaning her elbows against the stone with him. "Not thinking about jumping, I hope. Lee, it really was funny. Even Colonel Winters thought so. You're not in trouble. We're not in trouble."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Okay, that makes me feel just great."

"I'm not sorry I kissed you. I'm sorry we got interrupted."

"Oh."

And finally Lee smiled. "Do you think we really looked like two guys to Colonel Winters?"

"Yeah. In the dark I guess my uniform hid the party dress. Maybe if I'd worn heels or something?"

"I won't forget this dance either, Kara. I'm very glad you convinced me I should come. I'm glad you gave me a chance to apologize to you."

"Right," she said. "Well, friends always apologize if they hurt each other."

"Yeah, well, I want you to know something else, too. What I did when I went to Reider, it never even crossed my mind that it was about him, about humiliating him." _Boy, the alcohol had done a good job of loosening his tongue_. "To tell you the truth, I was really nervous, but I couldn't bear to think of that creep getting you expelled. I did it for you, Kara. I just want you to know that."

"I…I know. I knew it then. I was just…just so mad at you for throwing Connelly in my face again." She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She suddenly had the same crazy feeling she had felt once before with Lee, the feeling that something inside her was melting, some hard piece of her armor. Again the thought came dancing through her mind and was gone almost before she could grasp it, _I could love this man. _

"You're a good man, Lee, an honorable man, and I know it."

"Yeah, if I weren't headed for flight school, I'm sure I'd make a fine priest."

"Oh frak you. Here I am trying to make nice. Gods, I was almost getting mushy on you. Thanks for stopping me. So it's on to Flight School after graduation?"

"Twelve weeks of Viper training. Then I think an assignment to the War College. After that I'm not sure. Probably an assignment on a Battlestar. What about you, Kara? What are your plans for the summer?"

"You'll give me a hard time if I tell you."

"No I won't. Come on."

"Colonel Burgher has asked me if I would work for him this summer. The new Mark VII Viper is going to start arriving in the fleet before autumn and he wants some new sims to reflect what it'll be like to fly one. He's offered me a job helping with designing the sims. I'll also be his test pilot. I said I'd do it."

"Wow, Kara. That's great."

"I thought so, too. I don't want to go home. It's a good solution. So are you doing Viper training here at the airbase on Caprica?"

"No, I'll be training on Picon at the airbase there."

"Picon's not the worst place. I have a few fond recent memories of Picon."

"Oh, yeah," Lee said. "What did you like best, the cold drinks or the hot guys?"

Kara smiled. "The warm, sandy beaches, actually. There were only a few cold drinks and no hot guys?"

Lee looked over at her, "Really? Why not?"

Kara smiled again and rolled her eyes. "My roommate's family is very traditional. Hot guys are pretty much off limits when her parents are around, and believe me, during winter break they're always around. We still had a good time. And I was mostly screwing with you about the hot guys, anyway."

"You do that a lot, don't you? Screw with me?"

"Probably. It's a bad habit of mine when I like somebody. Now, come on let's go back inside. It's time to boogie, Lee. It's your senior dance. Let's go make those dancing lessons pay off. If we stay out here we're just going to get in trouble. Colonel Winters might not be so understanding next time. You don't want to take the chance this close to graduation, do you? Sorry, Dad. It wasn't the alcohol. It was getting caught naked on the terrace frakking the Academy's resident bad girl."

As he followed her back inside, he thought that just might be the only thing he could think of that would be worth getting expelled over.

They were careful to sit out slow dances for the rest of the evening.

When the dance was over, they couldn't find Karl, so Lee walked with Kara back to her dorm. When they got to the shadows of the tree-lined path, he reached down and took her hand.

"So, your father played the piano? Was he a musician or was that just a hobby?"

"He was a musician."

"What kind?"

"Blues…jazz…classic…whatever. But I haven't seen him since…not in a long time. He and my mom split when I was little…ten, I think. We used to live in a big old house on Picon. It seemed big to me, anyway, and my father had a room for his piano and other music stuff. When they split my mom moved us onto the base. I hated it until I met Karl. I really missed my dad."

"Why did he and your mom split?"

Kara shrugged. "She never told me. I blamed her because I could never imagine my father leaving me. I asked her one time, and after she busted me across the lip she told me not to mention that two-timing son of a bitch to her ever again. I was too young at the time to understand what that meant. Funny thing though, she never took off her wedding ring."

"Neither did my father," Lee said. "My parents divorced when I was in high school, but my dad still wears his ring, too. Weird."

"Yeah," Kara said. "So the moral of the story is…"

"Don't get married."

"Oh, not only are you a smart guy, you're a mind-reader, too. Nothing in my future but flying Vipers and one-night stands."

"You know something, Kara. I'm beginning to pick up on when you're screwing with me."

"I thought you might be. I'm serious about the Vipers, though."

They walked in silence until they got near her dorm where she stopped short of the brightly lit entrance. "I guess I can find my way from here."

"Yeah. So, the dance was nice. I'm glad you talked me into it." Lee said.

"Right. I mean normally I don't…you know dances aren't my thing, but this one was okay."

"Will I see you at graduation?"

"Sure. I'll be there. For you, for Karl, for all my friends who are graduating this year. Next year will be dull as hell. I might even have to study."

"So, you'll stay out of McGee's?"

"Mostly."

"You know I won't be around to get your ass out of trouble."

Kara smirked. "Like I can't take care of myself."

"Next time we go to a dance together, I want you to promise me you'll wear a dress."

She grinned. "Sure. Next time we go to a dance together you'll see me in a dress."

"Well, I guess I'd better get back to my dorm."

"Right."

"Look, I hope you're okay with what happened tonight."

"What happened tonight?"

"The kiss. I mean, I know you probably hadn't counted on that. I know you said we were going to the dance as friends, so I just want to make sure you're okay with it. I wasn't trying to seduce you. I respect you, Kara. I just...got carried away."

"Yeah, Lee, I'm okay with it. In fact I'll probably have to go take a cold shower to get over it. I got carried away, too. That was hands-down the hottest kiss I've had all year."

"You're screwing with me again, aren't you?"

"You said you were able to figure that out now. So figure it out." They stood in awkward silence for a few moments.

He wanted to kiss her again, gods he wanted to kiss her again. Was she screwing with him or not? Probably. Or should he take the chance she was telling the truth?

Finally Kara said, "Lee?"

"Yeah, Kara?"

"Areyou going to stand here all night holding my hand?"

Lee realized he was still clutching her hand. He started to let go, and then suddenly brought her hand up to his lips where he kissed the top of her knuckles. "Think about me the next time you slug somebody. Just make sure it's not an instructor. Goodnight, Kara. Thanks again for the dance."

"Sure. Goodnight, Lee."

As she watched him walk back up the path, she brought her hand up and pressed her own lips to the spot his had been moments before. Softly she said, "I wasn't screwing with you, Lee. What I said about the kiss, that was the truth. And the cold shower, too."

...

Lee did see Kara at graduation, but only briefly. She came up to him in the bright sunlight in the stadium, as he stood with the rest of his classmates holding their newly awarded degrees. A special Viper team in perfect V-formation had just done a low flyover and his adrenalin was pumping so much that he felt like he was high.

They smiled at each other. And then she was in his arms in a tight hug for only a few moments. "Congratulations, _Lieutenant_." She stepped back and touched the new bars on his uniform collar, the bars his father had pinned there during his commissioning ceremony early that morning.

"So are you coming to Karl's graduation party? He told me he'd invited you."

"I'm going to try. There's this other thing I've got to do first. My father…some of his fellow officers are having a dinner and some kind of reception afterward, and I've already been told I have to go to it. I'm the guest of honor. But if we get through in time, I'll be there. You can count on it."

Kara felt tears forming and couldn't stop them.

"Hey, what's this? I don't see Captain Reider around anywhere."

"You look so damned good today. I just want to remember you like this."

"We aren't saying goodbye forever, you know. I mean I hope we aren't. I hope I'll see you tonight."

"I'm sure your family's waiting for you. See you later?"

"Sure. You can count on it."

Impulsively, surprising herself more than she did him, she pulled him to her and kissed him hard on the mouth, tasting him and the salt of a tear that had run down her cheek.

He barely had a chance to respond before she was gone, moving off quickly through the crowd. He watched until he couldn't see her anymore and still kept looking for her. He finally turned and saw Zak and his mother coming toward him, and behind them his father. He smiled and waved and headed across the field. And tried to put aside the ache that Kara's going had left in his heart.

It wasn't until then that he thought he should have asked her to stay. He should have introduced her to his mother and Zak and to his father. Yeah, he should have asked her to stay. Meeting his father would probably have been the high point of her year.

TBC…

**AN: **I have used the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado as my model for the BSG Academy. Cadets are commissioned as second lieutenants during smaller and more private ceremonies conducted on the morning of graduation day. Mothers and/or fathers of cadets participate by pinning on the new officer's bars. The graduation ceremony itself is held in the stadium and after all diplomas have been awarded, the Thunder Birds, the special Air Force Flight Team, flying in full V-formation does a low flyover of the stadium just as the graduating cadets toss their hats into the air. Perfectly timed, this event is breathtaking and awe-inspiring to say the least. I had the privilege several years ago to attend an AF Academy graduation and see a family member graduate. He has since graduated from Flight School and become a USAF pilot.

This is very likely not RDM's vision of the Academy, but it is mine so I am sharing it with you.


	22. Graduation Party and the Day After

Chapter 22

Graduation Party and the Day After

Kara Thrace woke up with a pounding headache and only a vague recollection of where she was. What did she remember? Karl's graduation party, a hotel in Caprica City, a two-bedroom suite with a sitting room in the middle. Yeah, and beside her in bed was Karl's sister. That meant Karl was probably on the couch in the sitting room. His parents were in the other bedroom.

She sat up and the demons inside her head hammered that much harder. Damn. And her split lip was sore as hell. She got up and stumbled into the bathroom where she stood in the shower for a long time. Finally feeling minimally better she got dressed and went into the sitting room.

Karl was asleep on the couch in his underwear, the blanket mostly on the floor. When she sat down in one of the chairs to put on her shoes, he stirred and opened his eyes.

"Oh, frak me," he groaned.

"Me, too. I haven't been that drunk since I got thrown in the brig."

"I don't think I've ever been that drunk."

Kara noticed that the door to his parent's bedroom was open and it was empty. "Where are your mom and dad?"

"They woke me up earlier and told me they were going to breakfast. They were going to do something afterward but I forgot what they said. Hand me my jeans, will you?"

Kara took his jeans off the back of a chair and gave them to him.

"Call room service," he told her, "and get a big breakfast tray sent up and lots of coffee. Lots of coffee. I"ll be back in a minute," he said as he disappeared into the bedroom. She heard the shower running as she punched in the room service number.

Last night. Oh, frak, last night. Not only had she drunk too much, she'd done something beyond stupid. She sat down on the couch, leaned back, closed her eyes, and immediately opened them as the room started a slow spin. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands. Yeah, she'd screwed up again. Big time. The only good thing was that this time it wasn't going to get her kicked out of the Academy.

...

Karl's parents had rented one of the hotel's small banquet rooms for Karl's party, a nice room that opened onto a terrace that overlooked the hotel pool. They'd hired a local band, college kids from the looks of most of them, but they were good. And there had been an open bar and dancing. Lots of dancing. And drinking. Lots of drinking. And all evening she had watched the door for Lee Adama. And he hadn't shown up until…yeah, that made her head hurt even worse just thinking about it.

So maybe she should have waited in line for the restroom near the lobby, the one that someone from hotel management had asked them to use. They were asked to stay out of the hotel bar. But she'd gone into the bar anyway where the ladies' room had no waiting line at all.

On her way back out, she'd seen the blond and stopped. She was familiar but Kara couldn't quite place where she'd seen her before. She was behind the bar and was wearing a ruffled white shirt and black bowtie and Kara finally realized with a little shock that she was Lee Adama's former girlfriend, the woman she'd seen with him at the concert. Her hair was up in a neat ponytail instead of down around her shoulders, but it was definitely Lee's ex. A bartender. Yeah, his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, was a bartender. Well what about that?

"Kara," Karl called to her from the doorway, "Somebody's looking for you."

"Coming."

The blond's head came around at the sound of her name, and for a few seconds they stared at each other. Kara finally turned away.

The person looking for her was Major Connelly. "I thought maybe I'd find you here at the best party in the house."

Behind Connelly's back she saw Karl shake his head and give her one of those clueless _I-didn't-invite-him_ looks.

"So what brings you out to play Major Connelly?"

"Just making the rounds of a few parties tonight. I was invited to the rest of them. I had to crash this one. I'm on my way home now. I wanted to stop by and say _hello_. I thought you might take pity and dance one time with an old man like me."

"Sure." He took her hand and started leading her to the dance floor. She glanced around at Karl and gave him her best _I-didn't-invite-him-either_ look followed by _I-don't-have-a-clue-what-this-is-about._

"Have you been drinking, Major?" Kara asked as he took her in his arms and they began dancing. She had noticed how flushed his cheeks were. "Not that I can say anything cause I've been drinking, too."

"As a matter of fact I have. A lot. I won't be driving home tonight. I can tell you that. I'm going to call a transport, that's for sure. The Academy frowns on instructors getting arrested for driving under the influence. It sets a very bad example. One thing instructors must do is set a good example."

His tone bothered her. "Is something wrong or are you just celebrating getting rid of another class of cadets?"

"I guess you could say both."

"Want to tell me about it?"

"Not tonight. What I'd like to ask is if you'll go somewhere with me tomorrow. A little picnic. I'd really like to talk to you, but not here. Not like this. I'm not quite sober enough."

"Look, you're still and instructor and I'm still a student. I thought we agreed to…you know…stay away from something like that."

"That's not what I'm asking you, Kara. I just want to talk. I've got some news for you about Reider, and I just want to see you again before…" he didn't finish the sentence.

"Before what? Are you going somewhere?"

"No, nothing like that. Will you do it?"

"I guess. Where and when?"

"I'll pick you up in the parking lot behind the library at noon tomorrow. No, better make that one o'clock. I might not be up by noon. You probably won't be either."

"I'll be there. You're sure you aren't going to get in trouble over this?"

"I don't think so. Colonel Winters left today right after the graduation ceremony to go on vacation." Connelly smiled for the first time. Kara had almost forgotten how good-looking he was.

The song ended. "Go home, Major, and sleep it off. I'll see you tomorrow."

Connelly left, and about an hour later the party began winding down. The band packed up at midnight, and she and Karl and several others wound up outside on the terrace sitting at one of the wrought-iron tables where they talked and drank for another hour. She had given up hope by then of Lee making it to the party.

One by one the others got up and drifted away until it was just her and Karl. Just like old times. Karl was going on to Raptor flight school on Picon and they would be separated for the first time in ten years. Her best friend, closer than a brother. Gods, saying goodbye to him was going to be hard. She put her feet up on the seat of an empty chair, leaned back and looked up at the stars for a long time. Yeah, how tough was that going to be? She felt the prickle of tears and willed them away.

When Kara looked back down, Lee's ex-girlfriend was standing at their table.

"Is your name Kara?"

"Yeah, and who might you be?"

"Do you know Lee Adama?"

"We both do," Karl said. "What's this about?"

"I'm not talking to you," the blond said without looking at him. "This is between me and her. Are you the cheap little whore who stole my boyfriend?"

Kara grinned and looked over at Karl. "Cheap little whore. That's original, don't you think?"

Karl shook his head slightly and gave her one of his _leave-it-alone-Kara_ looks. He should have known better.

"Well, I don't know about the cheap little whore part, but yeah, I do know Lee. I frakked him last night as a matter of fact, a couple of times. He couldn't get enough." She turned up her drink and drained it. "He told me he'd never had anything like it from his lame-ass _ex_-girlfriend. Would that be you?"

"Kara, don't do this," Karl said.

"Stay out of it, Karl. Like the blond said, this is between me and her, or should I say between the cheap little whore and the lame-ass ex-girlfriend." She was having fun.

"You bitch, you mother-frakking little bitch," Gianne said, her voice rising. "Stand up and say that to my face. Call me lame-ass to my face."

Kara slowly uncoiled herself from the chair and stood facing Lee's ex-girlfriend. She was grinning. "I thought I'd already done that. But, okay. I'm standing. Now what was it you wanted me to say again? Oh, yeah. Lee Adama. I've pretty much spoiled him now. Too bad for you, lame-ass. I think he's in love with me."

Kara knew the slap was coming, steeled herself for it. It couldn't be anywhere near as bad as what her mother used to do, but she was surprised. Gianne put a lot into the blow. Kara tasted blood.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Is that the best you can do, lame-ass?"

Gianne had her arm back to swing again when Kara decked her, a swift punch just hard enough to put Gianne on her ass.

Karl was on his feet and around the table before Gianne hit the ground. "Gods damn it, Kara, you just don't know when to quit, do you?" He put his arm around her waist, pulled her back and away. "That's enough. Stop it. Right now."

Yeah, it was enough. Gianne wasn't even trying to get up. She was staring at the doorway and then she started to cry. Really pouring out the tears.

Kara turned around to see Lee Adama standing there, looking from her to Gianne and back to her again with a shocked expression on his face. From his next move she knew that all he had seen was her punching his ex-girlfriend.

Lee was beside Gianne in an instant, helping her to her feet. Gianne was crying harder, neat ponytail all messed up, mascara and purple eye shadow running in tracks down her cheeks. And Lee had his arm around her. He led her to another table, seated her, grabbed a napkin, got ice and put it against her jaw.

"Time to go," Kara said quietly to Karl.

"Yeah," Karl answered.

Lee wouldn't let her past, though. He turned on her with fury in his eyes and got right in front of her, right in her face.

"What did you do that for, Kara? Huh? She's no match for you. You want to tell me just what the frak you did that for?"

Kara shook her head.

"Karl, you want to tell me what the hell happened?"

Karl shrugged. "Your friend got in Kara's face about something."

"What?"

"Ask her," Karl said. "She started it."

Kara's lip was still bleeding and Lee finally noticed. "You've got to be kidding? What was this about?"

Kara ran her tongue across the cut. "Nope. We were fighting over you. Just like sixth graders on the playground. Bet that makes you feel like hot stuff. Come on, Karl. I've had enough of this frakking crap."

She pushed past Lee. Let him comfort his wimpy bitch of a girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, whatever.

"Kara, wait. You come back here." Lee called after her, but Kara never stopped.

...

"Coffee, Kara?" Karl asked.

She opened her eyes. She must have dozed sitting there on the couch with her head in her hands. She hadn't even heard room service deliver the tray. She took the cup from Karl. During the next fifteen minutes she finished two cups of coffee but couldn't touch any food.

"What time is it?"

"Nearly noon, why?"

"I've got to go."

"You aren't going to hang around? I'm not leaving until late this afternoon."

"It's not going to be any easier then, is it?"

He rode the elevator down to the lobby with her, waited while the doorman called a transport and insisted on paying for it. They hugged tightly for a long time. He kept his arm around until the transport arrived and they finally had to separate.

"You will stay out of trouble, won't you?"

She forced herself to smile. "You bet."

She could feel the tears already burning her eyes when she looked at him. He was struggling with it, too, eyes red and watering and not just from his hangover. _I love you, best friend._ _I always will._ She didn't have to say it, and neither did he.

TBC…


	23. A Day for Surprises

Warning: Mildly explicit sexual content

Chapter 23

A Day for Surprises and a Night for Hot Dreams

Kara got back to her dorm half an hour before she was supposed to meet Major Connelly. She should call Lee and apologize. She should. She would. She found a phone book, found there was only one Adama listed in the city and punched in the numbers.

"Hello." A man's voice, that didn't exactly sound like Lee's, but didn't sound old enough to be his father.

"Lee?"

"Zak. Who's this?"

"A friend of Lee's. Is he there?"

"Yes."

"Could I speak to him, please?"

"Yeah, friend of Lee's, I guess so." Kara heard Zak's voice in the background calling, "Lee! Telephone! Yeah, stud, another girl."

She heard Lee's voice, still in the background. "Who is it?"

Zak. "She didn't give me her name."

Lee. "Is it Gianne? Because I don't want to talk to her again. I'm still trying to get my hearing back in that ear."

Zak. "I don't think so. Just answer the phone, bro. Some of us would love to have your problems with women."

"No you wouldn't. Believe me." Lee finally picked up. "Hello."

"Hi, Lee."

A long, deep exhaled breath. "Hi, Kara."

"About last night…"

"Yeah, about last night. You know I got away as soon as I could. I was really afraid Karl's party would be over, and I get there and what do I find? My ex-girlfriend on the ground, put there by the woman I was coming to see. I walked out of a frakking party with my father and a couple of admirals to come see you. How do you think that made me feel?"

"I don't know, Lee. I'm not you. Look, I just called to say…to tell you I'm sorry. I was drunk."

"That excuse is wearing really thin, don't you think?"

"Okay, no excuses. I'm sorry. Your girlfriend pissed me off and I let it get to me and I shouldn't have. Friends apologize when they do something to hurt the other and I'm sorry. Tell your girlfriend I'm sorry, too, will you? At least I hit her jaw. Not her perfect nose or perfect teeth."

"She's not my girlfriend. Okay? Not anymore."

"She's already called you this morning, hasn't she?"

Lee didn't answer her. He didn't have to. "And another thing. Do you want to tell me why you told her you had frakked me a couple of times the night before?"

Kara snickered. "What? A couple of times is normal for you? I was trying to impress her. I guess I should have said five or six times then."

Lee couldn't help it. He laughed. "In your dreams, Kara."

"How'd you know about my dreams? Look, Lee, point is I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to your girlfriend and I shouldn't have punched her, okay. You want me to put it in writing? _Dear Lee's girlfriend. I'm sorry I punched you out and I never frakked Lee Adama_. I'll even sign it in blood…from my cut lip."

"She shouldn't have started anything with you. That was uncalled for and pretty damned stupid on her part. And she's my _ex_-girlfriend. How many times do I have to say it?"

"She doesn't seem to think so."

"I think so. That's what counts. Is being your friend always this complicated?"

Kara started grinning even though she knew Lee couldn't see her. "You should ask Karl. He wrote the book on the complications of being my friend. It's thicker than the Caprica Phone Book. Look, I've got to go. I got something I've got to do, but you'll keep in touch, won't you?"

"Yeah, Kara. You know I will."

...

Fifteen minutes later Kara got into Major Connelly's car and they were on their way. He looked over at her. "What happened to your lip?"

"Later."

"Heat of passion?"

"Not the kind of passion you're thinking about."

He pointed to two cups of coffee in the console cup holder. "Back one's mine. Front one's yours. It's black if you can drink it that way. And let's wait to talk until we get there, okay? I'm still hung over."

"You're not the only one," Kara answered. "And thanks. I like cream, but I'll take coffee any way I can get it right now."

She reached over and touched a small razor nick on his jaw. He flinched slightly.

"Aw, Connelly, it must be love. You shaved for me even with a hangover."

"Shut up, Kara," he said, but he was grinning.

He took secondary roads and they drove for nearly thirty minutes before he pulled into a road where a sign said _Pelona Park_. The park was not deserted, but there were not a lot of people there either. Dressed in casual, civilian clothes, she and Connelly easily blended with the few couples and families strolling down towards the lake.

Connelly had brought a picnic basket and they found a nice spot on the distant shore. He had even remembered a blanket, which he chivalrously spread on the ground.

Kara smiled at him. "Can I talk now?"

"Sure. I can handle it now."

"You know as much as I'm enjoying this, its kind of worrying me. I thought we agreed to, you know, not put ourselves in a situation where we might, uh…be tempted."

Connelly sat down and gestured for her to sit. "Here, I'll put the basket between us if that will make you feel better."

Kara sat. "Stacey must be away."

"Yeah."

"So what's the news about Reider?"

"He's gone. He won't be back next year."

"You're kidding. What happened?"

"How much do you know about Tauron?"

"I know it's got loads of tylium. When I was a little girl my mother's Marine unit was sent there to protect a big mining operation from terrorists."

"Do you know anything about its geography?"

"Not really. Geography's not my strong suit either."

"There isn't a lot of habitable land on Tauron. Two island continents in the temperate zone where most of the people live. A lot of swampy land around the equator, and then the polar regions."

"Where a geological survey team found tylium under the permafrost a long time ago."

Connelly nodded. "To capsule a half-century of history in a few sentences. The government of Tauron sold out the polar regions to the big tylium mining consortiums. The native peoples were displaced, run off lands they had occupied for centuries. The military has had to maintain a presence there to protect the mining operations. What they're calling terrorists are really nothing but a bunch of ill-equipped natives."

"So does this geography-history lesson have something to do with Reider?"

"Captain Reider is on his way to Tauron to maintain the physical fitness of the Marines stationed at the North Mining Base."

"No kidding. How? Why?"

"Colonel Winters arranged it."

"Why?"

"He had some serious complaints about the captain."

"You had something to do with this and you're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Not in detail, no. But just so you'll know, you weren't the only one Kara. Your friend Adama was right about that. Reider has no business being a teacher or being in any position that gives him power over females. You were a lot luckier than a couple of others. All it took was somebody to get to the right cadets and start asking the right questions."

"And that somebody was you, wasn't it?"

Connelly shrugged. "I have a good rapport with a lot of my students. They trust me. And that closes the book on Reider. So how does it feel to have three years down and one to go?"

Kara was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. She suddenly thought about Lee Adama. "I don't know. You know, Connelly. This has been one weird year."

"Tell me about it. Stacey's pregnant. She told me a couple of days ago before she left on her sales trip."

Kara opened her mouth and then shut it and finally said, "I guess that explains why you were drunk last night."

"Yeah. Stacey and I have had a few problems these last couple of months. I wasn't all that sure we were going to make it. I don't know, maybe I was acting different. Maybe she sensed something. Who knows?"

"Sensed what?"

"Frak, Kara. What do you think?"

"Hey, nothing has happened between us since that night."

"That doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about it. Or you."

"Yeah, go ahead. Make me feel bad. I'm a screw-up. I deserve it. So what are you going to do?"

"Marry her. She's having my child. It's my responsibility."

"Oh, and what is this? You bring me out here to seduce me? One last little fling before you make an honest woman of your pregnant girlfriend?"

"No, oh gods, no. Kara, I swear. I just wanted to spend a little time with you before Stacey and I…well, after that I won't be able to do something like this. This is Stacey's last sales trip. She's already turned in her notice. We're getting married in six weeks. She wants something besides a civil ceremony and said she needs six weeks to put the whole thing together. I'd just a soon…" he stopped and looked out over the lake. "I'd rather not make a big deal out of it. I've done the big formal wedding once already and look how that ended up. Stacey says it'll be small and private, but still, she wants the dress and reception and all that. She knows enough people that she can put together something like that in six weeks. Hell, my first wife took over six months to plan our wedding. Then again she wasn't pregnant."

Suddenly Kara felt sorry for him. Sorry that she had played a part in what he was going through now. Sorry for herself.

"Well I got a confession, too. I've got some feelings for Lee Adama. Stupid, I know."

Connelly inhaled and blew out the breath. "I wondered if something was going on. I saw you at the dance with him. You two looked good together out there on the dance floor."

"That wasn't…like a date, really. We're only friends. I mean he only thinks of me as a friend."

"But you feel more than that for him?"

"Maybe. Frak, I don't know. I mean, nothing ever happened between us and now he's going to Picon for Flight School, and I'll probably never see him again. So…" she shrugged.

"He doesn't return your feelings?"

"At the dance we…we kissed out on the terrace. It was getting pretty deep when Colonel Winters came up. He thought we were two guys."

"What? I mean I saw that you were wearing your uniform, but hey, I can't imagine even that old warhorse mistaking you for a guy. As much as I don't want to, I've got to hear this."

Kara told him about how she, Lee and Karl didn't have dates and had gone together and about not having a dress or money to buy one. When she got to the part about Colonel Winters interrupting them, she mimicked the colonel's voice and inflection and Connelly cracked up laughing.

"I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, but that is funny."

"Well, with me and Lee it's been one extreme or the other. The frak or fight thing, except we've never frakked. After the dance he walked back to my dorm with me and I wanted to kiss him again, but I didn't. We stood there holding hands like a couple of twelve-year-olds, and joking about it. I mean how stupid is that?"

"Not as stupid as you seem to think."

"I thought he and I might…I don't know…last night if he showed up at Karl's graduation party. You know, maybe a couple of drinks and he and I might…kind of take up where we left off out there on the terrace at the dance. I had some big plans for last night. It didn't work out, though."

"He didn't show up?"

"Oh he showed up all right. Just in time to see me slug his ex-girlfriend."

"What?"

"She started it. That's how I got this." Kara pointed to her lip and then related the events of the evening after Connelly had left and also her phone call apologizing to Lee earlier that morning.

"Lords of Kobol, Kara."

"Yeah, seems somebody's always wanting to punch me out. Karl says if I'd just learn to keep my mouth shut."

"I think I'm going to have to agree with him. At least you apologized to Lee."

"There's an attraction that neither one of us can seem to get over…or do anything about. Crazy, isn't it? I mean any other guy I felt that way about, I would have just frakked him and been done with it, gotten it out of my system, but Lee…I don't know. It's weird."

"Are you maybe afraid of what you're feeling for him?"

"I guess. Maybe. I don't know."

"Does he know how you feel?"

Kara shrugged. "I never said anything. I mean…but he should have figured it out. He's not stupid. He graduated third in his class. I mean I shouldn't have to spell it out for him, should I? Hey, Lee…I…have…a…thing…for…you."

"Being book smart and people smart isn't the same."

"Right. I guess it's not that important to him. So I'll just eat my heart out over Lee Adama while you marry your pregnant girlfriend."

Suddenly Connelly said in a half-mocking tone. "Aren't we a sorry pair?"

Kara sighed and felt tears well in her eyes. "Today, I said goodbye to the best friend I've ever had. Maybe ever will have. Karl Agathon. A guy who stood by me since I was a kid. I think if I lost you as a friend right now too, I'm not sure what I'd do."

He put the picnic basket on the other side of him and pulled her into his arms. They held each other for a long time, until they both realized that the embrace was becoming something else. She felt her pulse quicken and felt him press his lips against her forehead for a few seconds. Self-consciously they separated.

Connelly groaned. "It would be so damned easy to….I'm sorry, Kara. I said I wasn't going to do this. Give me a minute."

Kara looked away over the lake and stared at a small boat in the distance. She'd felt something, too, a purely physical reaction. That's all. She had a quick flashback to that night, to the things they had done to each other, of how good it had felt and how long it had been for her.

Still not looking at him she said, "You're not the only one. It'd be easy for me, too."

"But you know what? You'd just be pretending I was Adama, and while that wouldn't bother most guys, it sure as hell would bother me."

Kara looked down as a wave of guilt swept her. "Best if we just don't go there at all."

"Frak," he said. "Why does life have to be so damned complicated?"

"Maybe we'll see each other at McGee's once in a while. You're always welcome at my table, you know."

"Thanks, Kara. You know something, Lee Adama just became the biggest fool I think I've ever known. To have a chance with you and not…"

"Yeah," Kara said. "Isn't that the truth?" She sighed. "Isn't that the truth? Are you going to invite me to the wedding?"

Connelly started laughing and lay back on the blanket. "What, take a chance you'd have a few drinks and punch out the bride?"

Kara started laughing, too. "Yeah, maybe a wedding invitation is _not_ such a good idea."

...

Kara should have known she would dream about Lee again that night. But this dream was the best one she'd ever had.

In the dream she and Connelly were sitting on the blanket by the lake. Connelly got up and walked away, maybe down to the lake, maybe back up the trail. As soon as he was gone, Lee sat down beside her.

He was casually dressed in khaki shorts and a plaid short-sleeved shirt, and he was barefoot.

"Finally," Lee said. "I thought the major was never going to leave."

"What are you doing here?" Kara asked him.

"Finishing what we started the night of the dance."

"What?"

"Isn't that what you want to do? Isn't that what you told the major you wanted? Going to seduce me at Karl's party." Lee gently pushed her down on the blanket and rolled over on her. "You know how much you turn me on, don't you? You know what you did to me in the cafeteria that day, don't you? And the night of the dance?"

Kara squirmed, instantly aware that the more she pressed against him, the better it felt. "I can tell, Lee. I can feel you."

Suddenly, as dreams can change without any logical reason, they were naked and Lee was kissing her mouth, her neck, and down her chest, her nipples and down across her stomach and…and…and oh, gods, the things Lee Adama could do with his tongue. She was getting there…oh yeah…she was getting there when he stopped.

"What do you want, Kara?"

"Finish it," she moaned softly. "Damn it, Lee, finish it."

He entered her and her head fell back. "Is it good, Kara?"

"Yes, oh Lee. So good…so good."

He pulled back and thrust into her again and then again and she moved closer to her climax with each thrust until she came, arms wrapped tightly around him, almost choking in her ecstasy.

Kara woke up sweating. And glad she didn't have a roommate that summer. She was sure she couldn't have stayed quiet through something that good even if it was only a dream.

It was funny, she thought as she finally drifted toward sleep again. Her dream Lee had just done what the real Lee had never done. Would probably never do. Yeah, frakking dreams were always what you wanted them to be, weren't they?

TBC…


	24. Flight School and Hot Dreams

Warnings: Mildly explicit sexual content

Chapter 24

Flight School and Hot Dreams

The summer after his Academy graduation was one of the most exciting and most difficult of Lee Adama's life. After a short vacation spent with Zak at the beach on Picon, Lee reported for duty at the airbase there.

He spent the first four weeks in the classroom, studying Viper technology, ejection survival, and instrument navigation. Next came actual survival exercises. Then sims where he qualified immediately. After that he actually got to fly a Viper, a two-seated trainer, with an instructor sitting behind him. At night, there were homework assignments based on what he had studied that day. After a nearly perfect check ride with his instructor came the day he would always remember, the day he soloed in a Viper.

Five weeks into Flight School and he hadn't left the base. One of his classmates, an Academy graduate named Colin Flynn, finally talked him into going into town on Saturday. He had a date with a young officer who worked Intelligence at the base. She was bringing a friend, also in Intel. Lee wasn't interested, but he knew he should get out so he agreed. A casual date, right? Nothing more. He really wasn't interested in anything more.

How many times had he thought about that last scene with Kara? When he'd walked out of the party his father's friends had given him and driven like a maniac across town so he would maybe get to Karl's party before it broke up. And then to wander around for twenty minutes at the hotel looking for the party only to finally find them just in time to see Kara punch Gianne. He couldn't even recall what had gone through his mind at the moment.

And to find out from Karl and later Gianne that she had started it. Kara had been right. They had been acting like a couple of sixth graders on the playground. And no, it hadn't made him feel like hot stuff. He'd walked Gianne to her car in the employee parking lot and tried unsuccessfully to get her to believe he'd never had sex with Kara, but he knew she didn't believe him. He couldn't even understand why Kara had told Gianne such a preposterous lie. But then Kara Thrace wasn't like any woman he'd ever known.

Gianne had begged him to start over. She'd told him she'd take him back no matter what, that she would "forgive him" for his wild night with Kara and that she didn't care how he felt about her. The only wild nights he'd had with Kara Thrace had been in his dreams, and he'd had plenty of those. But he'd told Gianne no, he didn't want to get back together. Of course Gianne blamed it on how he felt about "that quick-fisted bitch." Gianne was only half-right. Kara was the main reason, but he also didn't want to relive the past. He had Flight School and an assignment to a battlestar ahead of him. He had been tapped for War College at some future date. He didn't want to deal with trying to keep up a relationship with Gianne or anyone at the moment. He was happy having no strings in his life right now.

He had heard from Kara a few times. They had been exchanging messages by base electronic exchange. But nothing in her messages had led him to believe she regarded him as anything more than a friend. And by her own admission, friendship with Kara wasn't easy. So he'd been answering in kind, light and friendly, and so far he hadn't once said how much he missed her.

He and Colin met their dates at a nice bar and restaurant on the waterfront. Lee was pleasantly surprised at how attractive his date was... brunette, dark-eyed, dressed in something clinging and low-cut. He tried to imagine Kara in a dress like that. But he realized that Kara would never put her breasts out there for everybody to look at. She definitely had nice breasts. Hadn't he felt them against him that night at the dance? She just wouldn't flaunt them the way this girl was doing. In fact, he bet the only kind of bra Kara owned was a sports bra.

_Okay, Lee, quit thinking about Kara's breasts._

Introductions were made. Lee, Megan. Megan, Lee.

But with Lee, it always took more than beauty. Despite the low-cut dress and the way she kept touching his arm and giggling, Megan was quite intelligent. So okay, he thought after the second drink, she should be intelligent, she's in Intel, and laughed silently to himself.

At the end of the meal when the women excused themselves to go to the ladies room, Colin wasted no time asking, "So, what do you think?"

"Nice," Lee said matter of factly, without any real enthusiasm. "She's nice."

"Nice? Frak, Adama. She's hot. Did you notice that set of...?" Colin briefly cupped his hands over his own chest. "And I think she likes you. Man she's been looking at you like she could eat you alive. It almost gave me a hard-on watching her."

Lee nodded still without any enthusiasm. "Okay, yeah, I agree. She's hot. And Flynn, you're such a horn dog that looking at Colonel Winters' mamma would give _you_ a hard-on."

Colin laughed so hard he almost choked. "Well now when did you become the class clown as well as the class hot-shot? I'm glad to see you've got a sense of humor after all. Play your cards right, and you won't be sleeping in your rack back on the base tonight."

Lee nodded and tried for a smug smile. "No doubt."

_But you know what? The truth is I have a thing for someone I left behind at the Academy. Yeah, Megan's nice, but I'm just not interested. _Lee almost said it out loud.

Colin was right, though. After dinner Megan invited him back to her apartment. He made the mistake of going. Megan was very aggressive. Thirty minutes later the low-cut dress was off and they were making out on the couch. Ten minutes later all clothes were off and they were in her bed. Twenty minutes after that he rolled off her.

Physically he felt good. Physically he always felt good after sex. What guy didn't? But he also had come to believe a long time ago that the best sex was more than just getting off. It was that connection he felt to a woman, it was that part that says more than body, that part that says heart and maybe even soul. He'd never felt that yet, but he still believed it could happen. The sex with Megan had been okay, better than doing it himself anyway.

He couldn't help thinking about Kara. With Kara, he had felt a real connection when they had kissed the night of the dance. He was sure they'd have that kind of connection in bed. Like there was any chance of that ever happening. But maybe he wasn't being fair to Megan. He had long ago accepted the fact that there would never be another Kara in his life. Frak, why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

Megan put her hand on his shoulder. "Is everything all right?"

"Sure. Yeah, sure."

"You just seem distracted. I hope everything was all right with…you know…I mean I don't usually sleep with a guy on the first date, but…"

_Sure you don't. I'm the first, right? _But he gave her a hug anyway. "It was great. Really great." Gods, how easily the lie rolled off his tongue. "I've been working hard. I never thought Flight School would be so tough. I guess I'm having trouble shifting gears."

"Colin says you're at the top of your class. Best scores on everything. That's amazing."

Lee shrugged. "I study a lot. Maybe too much sometimes."

"With your father flying a Viper in the First Cylon War, maybe it's genetic."

"How'd you know about my father?"

"I'm in Intel, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. I should have realized."

They talked a little while longer until Megan fell asleep. Lee waited until her breathing completely evened out before he slipped quietly out of bed. His underwear was on the floor, but the rest of his clothes were in the living room. He dressed quickly, found a notepad by the phone and left her a note that simply said. _I'll be in touch._ Sometime, yeah, he would call her. Maybe. If he got tired of doing it himself.

The subway was only a block from her apartment. He caught it to the central transport station and was in luck. He made the last transport back to the base before 5:00 in the morning. Thirty minutes later he had showered and was in his bunk when something made him get up and check his messages.

He logged onto his computer and saw a base electronic message from Kara.

_Hi Lee. I guess I should be calling you Apollo. I hope you're kicking ass in a Viper by now. _

_I'm having fun helping Colonel Burgher write his sims and test them. He's started bringing his two grandsons in with him a day or so each week (things are more relaxed during the summer.) The boys are 8 & 11. Those days I feel like a baby-sitter, but manage to keep them entertained and still get a little work done. I flew a tricky sim for them the other day and really awed the little boogers so I've got a fan club. A little hero-worship never hurts anybody. With me as the hero of course. I know you're laughing right now so cut it out. I'm going to McGee's tonight for the first time in a couple of weeks. It's really not the same without my friends, especially you and Karl. _

_You never did tell me how you came up with my call sign. _

_I meant to tell you the last couple of messages but forgot. Capt. Reider won't be back in the fall. It seems he's being stationed on Tauron at one of the polar bases. I guess even those deep-freeze guys need to keep in shape (Marines being the operative word). Sometimes I imagine one of them making a pretzel out of him. _

_Believe it or not I've really missed you and I've thought about you a lot. There's not a single dipstick around this summer to quote the rules and regs to me. I caught myself the other day taking my copy of 'The Cadet's Code of Conduct' off the shelf and dusting it. That was enough to give me my fix for the summer. Take care of yourself and __try not to crash__. Kara (Starbuck). _

_Believe it or not I've really missed you and I've thought about you a lot._ He felt like he had just pulled a 3G loop in a Viper. Maybe that meant he and Kara might someday be more than just friends. He was too tired to answer her message that night, but he would answer it soon. All thoughts of Megan had vanished from his mind. He went to sleep thinking about Kara.

The next night he had just started to reply to her when his phone rang.

"Hey, genius. Crashed any Vipers yet?"

"Zak. Hey, little bro. Not me, but there was a close call on base a couple of days ago. A nugget coming in to land forgot to put his skids down. It scared him pretty good. He pissed his flight suit. So what's up with you?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to follow in your footsteps. The pilot thing, you know. I'm going to the Academy."

"Are you frakking kidding me?" Lee blurted. "Since when have you ever wanted to be a pilot? You've always wanted to be an archeologist or a writer or a soccer player. Hell, Zak, your transfer has already been accepted at Caprica U. What changed your mind?"

"Dad and I had a long talk."

"Dad! I should have known. I should have frakking known. Zak, listen to me. Do not, please, do not make a decision based on what Dad thinks. Don't let him give you his 'the wings make the man' speech. It's crap, Zak. You don't have to be a pilot to be a man."

For a long moment there was silence and then Zak said in his usual, good-natured way. "Aren't you a shining example for standing up to Dad?"

"I want to be a pilot. I've always wanted to be a pilot."

"Which means what? That Dad just brainwashed you younger than he did me?"

"Let's not go there, okay. Look, Zak, I just want you to be happy. I don't want you trying to do something you don't want to do just because you think it's what Dad wants."

"I don't want to fight with you about this, Lee. I called to tell you so you could start getting used to the idea, okay?"

"How the hell did you get accepted at the Academy at this late date?"

"Dad made a call, and they transferred my acceptance from the U to the Academy. Dad said it was no big deal."

"No big deal? Right. Zak, if Dad told you that he lied. Every single application to the Academy is reviewed and voted on. You can't just transfer an acceptance from the U to the Academy. It doesn't work that way. Dad must have…"

"Yeah, well," Zak interrupted him, "so maybe Dad called in a favor or something. Look, I know I'm not as smart as you. And I found out all of my credits from the junior college aren't going to transfer so I'm basically going to have to start all over again. Three more years instead of two like if I'd gone to the U, but it's still _my_ life. _My_ choice. Try to respect _my_ decision, okay? Lee, I've made up my mind. I'm going to do it, graduate from the Academy and go on to Flight School."

Lee took a deep breath. "Okay, sure, Zak. Whatever. How's Mom?"

"Fine. She's started dating. Did you know that?"

"Lucky him. Anyone I know?"

"I don't think so. He runs the Natural History Museum. Dr. Henry Rollins. Doctor as in professor, not the medical kind. He seems nice. One of her friends introduced them. He's a widower, a couple of years older than Mom."

"Well, give her my love."

"You know something, Lee. You could do that yourself if you'd call her once in a while. You've been on Picon for what, six, seven weeks and you haven't called her once."

"Phones are bi-directional. She could call me, too."

"Right, she could. Look, Lee, she's not drinking anymore. She's in some kind of treatment program. Henry got her into it. She's trying. Give her a break. I know things were rough in the past, especially between you and Mom. I know there were times when she…"

"Yeah, Zak. Okay. That's enough about the past. Just tell her…tell her I'll be in touch."

Lee hung up and lay his head down on his desk. He felt sick that Zak was going to try to please their dad when he knew that's not what Zak really wanted. His ability to concentrate on the night's assignment was gone. As was his desire to reply to Kara's message.

Several nights went by before he answered her.

_Hi Kara (Starbuck). Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. I haven't been kicking butt in Vipers. More like getting my butt kicked. I haven't crashed anything, though. Flight school has been much harder than I thought, the book part more work than the flying part. Survival training was a bitch. I nearly drowned when they dropped me in full flight gear into the training pool. But believe it or not I'll graduate in a couple of days. I can't wait to wear the wings. My assignment to the War College has been postponed so I'm going next to the _Atlantia_. I can't say I'm too upset at the prospect. Sounds like your summer has been fun._

_I'll tell you the story of your call sign next time I see you._

_I wonder what caused Capt. Reider's reassignment? Bet you know and just aren't saying._

_Stay out of McGee's once classes start this fall.__ Your favorite (?) Student Advocate won't be there to get you out of hack. Study hard and I'm sure in a year you'll be getting your wings just like me. I heard "our song" on the radio the other day and I thought about the dance. So, I've missed you, too. Lee (Apollo)._

A week after sending the message to her, a few days before he left for the _Atlantia_, he was trying to work out a leave that would coincide with Zak's winter break from the Academy. He wanted to plan another ski trip when he realized that Zak's winter break would also be Kara's winter break. He wondered what would happen if he asked her to go skiing with them. He wondered if he could wait that long to see her. And then he got a message from Karl Agathon.

_Apollo. Heard you got your wings. Congratulations. I finished Raptor training and qualified as an ECO a couple of weeks ago and found out I'm going to be stationed on Galactica. Put in a good word with your Old Man for me. I saw Kara and Major Connelly last week in McGee's when I was back on Caprica for a few days visiting my folks. She said you were going to the _Atlantia_. Maybe I'll see you when the Fleet does war games this winter. Keep it in the air. Karl (Helo)._

"Frakking bitch. Gods damned frakking bitch," Lee cursed and flung a book across the room.

Not only was Kara still seeing the major, she had lied to him about it as well. What was it she had told him before her hearing? That she and Connelly had only done it once and that it would never happen again. That she had learned her lesson. Oh, yeah, right. She had sure as hell lied about that, and that hurt almost as much as knowing she was still frakking Connelly. Almost as much, but not quite. He vowed to himself that he was through with Kara Thrace. She and Major Connelly were welcome to each other. It's a wonder she'd found time to message him at all considering how busy she had been between the sheets with the major.

Gods damn it. What a fool he had been to believe she'd missed him. To believe she'd been thinking about him.

...

He went to bed with his emotions churning so he should have known that he would dream about her that night. But this dream was hot and angry and it was so good he would think about it for days and days. He dreamed he was sitting at his desk trying to study when she came up behind him and began slowly sliding her finger over the rim of his ear.

How he knew it was Kara when he couldn't see her was part of the dream's mystery. And he was angry for a reason that was also lost somewhere in the dream. He just knew he shouldn't give in to her. He pushed her hand away until she leaned down and took his earlobe gently between her teeth.

"What are you doing, Kara?"

"You have to ask?" Her mouth moved to his neck and he felt her tongue.

He clenched his teeth to stifle a groan. "Stop it, Kara. Leave me alone. Go back to your damned major." Yeah, that's what he was angry about. The major.

She easily turned his chair around and he found that she was naked. And so, suddenly was he. Naked and hard. She straddled him, but not quite close enough that he could enter her.

"You really want me to stop?" she asked as she reached down and grasped him. "Leave you alone? Really? It sure doesn't feel like it." She squeezed and slid her hand slowly up and down his shaft several times. This time he did groan. It was almost more than he could stand.

"You like? You want more?" She purred.

In answer he lifted her hips and pulled her down on him. He knew he was weak, but he wanted her like he'd never wanted any other woman, the way he wanted her that day in the cafeteria, the night of his senior dance, the way he wanted her before he knew she had lied to him about Connelly. The way he still wanted her.

She was warm and wet and so tight around him. And just like that he was unable to control his desire. _Frak, no, not yet, oh gods, not yet…it feels so good…not yet…not yet._

"Yes," she whispered against his ear. Her mouth found his and they kissed, deeply, passionately. She was holding his face between her hands, kissing him when he came. And woke up, sweating, heart pounding, moaning Kara's name. Damn her. That frakking bitch could turn him inside out even in a dream. But oh, it was good. Even in a dream with her it was so damned good. Even in a dream with her it was so damned much better than the real thing had been with Megan or even Gianne.

He couldn't do anything about the dreams, couldn't do anything about how often she came into his thoughts, but he didn't have to stay in touch with her and let her make a fool of him. He didn't answer her next five or six messages, and finally she quit sending them.

TBC…


	25. Lt Kara Thrace, Flight Instructor

Chapter 25

Lieutenant Kara Thrace, Flight Instructor

Kara Thrace sat at her desk in the small office she shared with the other Viper flight instructor at the Air Base on Caprica. Captain Desmond Valinski, call sign Dizzy, was a dark-skinned man who had graduated four years ahead of her at the Academy. He was married to a beautiful woman and they had three young children, stair-steps judging by the pictures that were on his desk and his file cabinets. His hobby was playing trumpet in a jazz band that she had heard on occasion at a nightclub in Caprica City. It was one of the few things she knew about him. She and Valinski rarely discussed their personal lives.

Medium height and slim with a prematurely graying buzz cut, he was an excellent instructor, much better with the book part of Flight School than she was. But she had him in the cockpit. It was generally acknowledged around the Air Base that no one was better in a Viper than Lieutenant Kara Thrace.

Kara had no pictures on her file cabinets and only two on her desk. One was taken the morning of her graduation from the Academy and was of Colonel Conrad Burgher pinning her lieutenant's bars onto her collar. For most of the other cadets, their mothers or fathers pinned on their new bars, but Kara's mother had said she wasn't up to making the trip and she hadn't heard from her father in years. She didn't even know where he was. So she had asked the man she had grown to respect and care for almost like a grandfather. He had been touched. She could tell. As he pinned the bars on her collar, she had seen tears of pride in his eyes.

The second picture was taken fourteen weeks after the first and was of Colonel Burgher pinning on her wings. Her mother hadn't made it to that either. Not that Kara really cared by then. She saw her mother only once more after finishing Flight School. Five weeks later her mother was dead of cancer.

Major Connelly was there, though, when she graduated and when she got her wings, too. They had managed to stay friends despite the odds. He loved her, and she loved him, too. Just not in a romantic way. He would never be quite as close to her as Karl Agathon was, but he was still a good friend.

They had consummated their relationship only once, the night they had met. She was drinking that night and still believed that she could get away with anything. And he was hot and good-looking and she was horny. It was right after she had aced Colonel Burgher's Viper sims, and she had been crazy and hadn't listened to Karl when he told her the world did not revolve around her. What had happened afterward had taught her a couple of lessons the hard way, which was the way Kara Thrace seemed to learn best.

She had learned that careless, selfish and immature acts sometimes reached far into not only her own life, but the lives of others as well. She had learned that not all rules and regulations can be ignored without consequences. And she had learned just how frakking fast your fortunes can change. How high you can be one minute and how low, the next. How the smallest act can have the biggest consequences.

Sometimes she still touched the lieutenant's bars on her collar with a feeling of awe. And her wings. That she had actually gotten them both was something she considered akin to a miracle. That she had made it through the Academy and Flight School without frakking up and getting kicked out was another. There had been that one time when she had almost lost it all, but Lee Adama had risked his career and saved hers.

She could never think of Lee without thinking of two things. The kiss they had shared on the night of his senior dance and how things had ended for them. Their ending wasn't that definite, but the fact that she hadn't heard from him in almost three years was a good indication to her that he had forgotten her.

But try as she might, she couldn't forget him. Couldn't forget the way he had kissed her the night of the senior dance. It was a hot kiss, filled with an almost adolescent horniness. But it was more than that. She had felt his heart in that kiss, and a promise, too. Nobody had ever gotten to her with just one kiss the way Lee Adama had. Even though it wasn't a kiss that she believed he could walk away from, in the end, he had.

She'd heard from him several times while he was in Flight School, the last time being right before he had gotten his wings. He had replied to a base electronic message from her, a message she had sent a few days earlier and had almost decided he wasn't going to answer. There had been nothing in his message to indicate he was dropping her from his life. In fact at the end of the message he had said he missed her. And he'd mentioned their song, the one they'd danced to on the terrace that long-ago night. She knew the whole message by heart. She'd printed it and kept it in the drawer by her bed and sometimes when she wanted to really torment herself, she took it out and read it.

No, she hadn't heard from him since then. Not a single reply to the half-dozen or so messages she had sent him after that. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. And she was still trying to figure out why. A couple of times she had thought about sending him a message. _Hey, Lee, just what the hell did I do to piss you off? _But he'd probably ignore that one, too.

She'd heard a few things about him, though. From Karl. _Saw Lee at a party on Picon after the fleet did war games. Some hot-looking dark-haired babe with big ta-tas was sitting on his lap._ And from her former roommate, Dana. _My sister, the one in Communications on Picon, said Lee's really made a name for himself with the girls in Intel. _Yeah, Lee had obviously left her behind without a second thought.

The last she'd heard, Lee was on the _Atlantia_. She had wondered if they would see each other during the year she spent on the _Triton_ right after she graduated from Flight School and got her wings, but their paths had never crossed. She might still be on the _Triton _if she hadn't done something stupid, but she had and as a result she had been ordered back to the Air Base on Caprica. She was going to be a flight instructor.

She liked serving on the _Triton_, but she liked being back on Caprica better. On the _Triton_ she was bored unless she was in a Viper and she drank too much, played cards too much and generally had too much attitude because she was the best Viper pilot on the battlestar and she knew it. No, she hadn't made too many friends on the _Triton._

There had also been that little incident with the other Viper pilot. Lieutenant Ivan Brindle, call sign Horse. Frakking bully, he deserved the punch she had given him. He deserved a lot worse, but he had family in high places. The Commander of the _Triton_ had no choice but to discipline her. The result was a reprimand in her folder that they both knew she didn't really deserve. He finally solved his problem by posting her back to Caprica with the recommendation that she become an instructor.

Kara didn't know anything about teaching when she started, but she did know Vipers, forward, backward, and upside down. She didn't think Captain Valinski had been too impressed with her until he saw her put a Viper through the paces. After that he helped her with the book part and she got better with every class. She was almost as confident in the classroom now as she was in a Viper.

Back on Caprica she got to see Connelly again. And Colonel Burgher. She stopped drinking so much. In fact she was hardly drinking at all now except a little on the weekends. And she started taking her job seriously. She began to see herself making a contribution to training new pilots and training them well.

She dropped by the Academy about once a month and had lunch with Colonel Burgher. She and Connelly met occasionally, too, for lunch or drinks, and once in a while she thought about what might have been if Stacey hadn't gotten herself pregnant. They had a little girl now, a beautiful, dark-haired little girl who looked like him and who was the apple of his eye.

He was still a damned good looking man. And still as hot as the night they had met. And as off-limits now as he had been then. But for a different reason. If Lee Adama had still been a part of her life, she would never have thought about Connelly as much as she did. But Lee wasn't a part of her life anymore. And Connelly was.

There had been a couple of guys during the last four years. Nothing serious, though. The Computer Specialist assigned to the _Triton_ for six months as a civilian contractor to help upgrade and network all their systems. He was a quiet, shy guy who was okay in bed when she met him and a whole lot better when they parted. Not that there had been all that many opportunities, but there had been enough. He was on the _Columbia_ now working with their computer systems, and they still kept in touch by electronic message. Not that it would ever go anywhere, but it was nice to hear from him occasionally.

There had also been a few one-night stands. Guys she'd picked up or let pick her up in bars when she was on leave. Physically satisfying as far as they went, but otherwise nothing to her. None of them.

And for the last year no one had shared her bed and she was getting used to it. And she'd been thinking about Lee. A lot. Funny she never dreamed about anyone but Lee. Yeah, every hot, sweet dream she'd had since the Academy had somehow involved Lee. She almost laughed out loud. If they ever did get together she bet he would be a real disappointment.

_Oh, frak, Kara_, she said to herself. _Enough traveling down memory lane_. A new class of nuggets was arriving next week and she had to review their Academy records on basic flight, look at their sim scores, look for their weak areas so she could work on them. She took the sealed 10x12 manila envelope that had just been delivered to her that morning and slit the end with a letter opener.

Carefully she slid the pages out. There were about six pages per cadet, with a picture stapled to the first page. The same information was on her computer, but since Command still insisted there be a paper copy of everything, she had gotten in the habit of using the paper.

The student records were arranged in alphabetical order. His was on the top. She looked at the picture and then at the name and then at the picture again. Zak Adama. No way this could be a coincidence. Kara Thrace laughed out loud. Life certainly had its ironies. She might be teaching Lee Adama's younger brother to fly. What would Lee think about that?

She looked up as Captain Valinski came in.

"Good morning, sir."

"Morning, Lieutenant. Sorry I'm late today. We had a little plumbing problem. My middle child flushed a couple of pairs of my socks down the toilet." He shook his head. "Kids. One day you'll know what I'm talking about."

"Right," Kara said.

"Are those the new nuggets?"

"This was just delivered." She split the stack in half, keeping the top half for herself and handing the bottom half to him. "Read 'em and weep."

They had worked out a way of dividing the class between them that was a little unorthodox, but worked for them. After they had both reviewed all the records, they took the pictures off, wrote the names on the back, shuffled them a number of times like a deck of cards and dealt them in two stacks. She should have known the gods were laughing at her when Zak's picture was the third one that Captain Valinski dealt to her stack.

TBC…


	26. Oh, Brother

Chapter 26

Oh, Brother

First day in the classroom. They were all there with their bright and eager faces. If this class followed the norm, one and three-tenths would wash out. Of course three-tenths of a cadet couldn't wash out, but sometimes one did and sometimes two. The average of the last five years was what they used as the norm. That didn't count the three-fifths who dropped out or switched from Vipers to another type of aircraft.

By the time they got to Flight School, most of those who weren't suited for Vipers had been eliminated, but occasionally one got through. It was almost always the claustrophobia that got them in the end. Or the vertigo. A few, a very few claustrophobics managed to control it in the simulator, but put them in a real Viper cockpit and they starting losing it. Most of these did fine when they switched to a Raptor or a larger transport.

As Kara looked out over the class, she wondered if they would all make it or if one or more of them would wash out. She wondered how Zak Adama was going to do. Lee, she knew, was a top-notch pilot. He had graduated first in his class in Flight School. Was Zak going to emulate his older brother?

At the end of the first day, he stayed behind after the rest of the students left. Kara had learned early on that every class had its suck-ups. And every class had a few who wanted to get in her pants. She had learned to recognize both types fairly quickly. They usually first declared themselves by staying after class. But Zak was neither.

He saluted and introduced himself and promptly blushed just like Lee had done the first time they'd met. She could see there was a resemblance, but Zak had darker hair and dark eyes. And he was shorter. Where Lee was chiseled and almost too good-looking for words, Zak was more what she would call cute.

"I've wanted to know what you looked like for a long time," Zak said, still blushing. "I mean in person. Lee showed me your picture in the Academy yearbook, but it's hard to tell, you know, from those little black and whites."

"Well, nugget? Am I what you were expecting?" Kara asked.

If possible, Zak blushed a deeper shade and mumbled, "More."

"What's that, nugget?"

"More, _sir_."

"Better. Why were you and Lee talking about me?"

"I went on a ski trip with Lee and his girlfriend while he was still at the Academy. I can't even remember her name. I didn't like her, anyway because she had such a temper. They got into a whopper of a fight because he was telling me about you flying all of Colonel Burgher's sims. I could tell how totally wowed he was." Zak finally took a breath. "It wasn't the smartest move. He spent the rest of winter break on the couch."

Kara smiled. "Sometimes I almost wish I'd never done it."

"No, no," said Zak. "After I got to the Academy I realized what an awesome thing you'd done. No one will ever beat it. The best they can hope for is a tie and that's not very likely."

"So your brother and his girlfriend got into a fight over it?"

Zak blushed again. "Not _it_ exactly. I think she was just tired of hearing him talk about you."

"Well, that certainly stopped, didn't it?"

Zak looked at her strangely. "I just wanted to say hello and tell you how glad I am to be in your class, sir."

"Right, nugget," Kara said and then she softened a little. "Thanks, Zak. I hope you're prepared to work hard. You won't get any special treatment from me because I knew your brother at the Academy."

_In fact, based on my experience with your brother, you'd be lucky if I didn't bust your chops on a daily basis. _Of course she would never say anything that cruel, and besides, until proven otherwise, Zak didn't deserve to have his chops busted.

"Oh, no, sir. The last thing I want is any kind of favors. When I get my wings, I want it to be because I earned them."

"No problem there." Kara said. "Every single pilot who leaves here with wings earns them. I make sure of that."

...

Zak worked hard and did fairly well that first week in the classroom. Nowhere near top of the class like she'd heard Lee had been in Flight School, but Zak wasn't at the bottom either. After that one conversation, he didn't try to talk to her again outside of class.

Kara, however, found herself comparing him to Lee on a daily basis. Zak was definitely more laid-back and easy going. He laughed more easily and was more soft-spoken, not as cocky or sure of himself. And he certainly wasn't hung up on rules and regulations. Kara found that she liked him a lot.

The rest of the students liked him, too. She walked to the door of the classroom a few minutes late one morning and Zak was telling a joke. His back was turned and he didn't see her so he continued.

"…so the flight instructor wrote a note to the crew chief. _Viper handles funny. Also dead bugs on canopy._ Next day the flight instructor gets back in the Viper and finds a note from the crew chief. _Viper reset to handle serious. Live bugs on back order."_

Everyone in room howled with laughter...until they saw her. Zak cringed and mouthed the word _sorry_. She should have busted his chops for it, but for some reason she let it slide with just a stern look. He was a model of good behavior from then on.

...

On Friday night at the end of the second week of class, Kara went to the Button Room where Captain Valinski's jazz group was playing. She was relaxing, unwinding from two long weeks when she always felt pressured to get into the heads of her new students.

She felt secure at the Button Room. The music was mellow jazz. Nothing you could dance to. Most of the patrons were middle-aged or older. And everybody mostly left her alone, which suited her just fine. She didn't think it was the kind of place that would attract any of the younger crowd, certainly not any of the young nuggets who liked to party on the weekends.

Apparently she was wrong, because about halfway through the band's first set she looked up and saw Zak come in alone. He went first to the bar, got a beer, and headed toward her table.

When he sat down and smiled at her, she felt relaxed enough and curious enough not to tell him to get lost.

"What'd you do, nugget, follow me?"

"Yes, sir," he said and blushed. "I've been walking around outside for a long time working up the nerve to come in here."

"Right," Kara said. She hadn't expected him to admit it. That was refreshing. "You don't think this is going to get you any extra points, do you?"

He looked at her and Kara was reminded of a cute puppy with soft brown eyes. Damn, something about that look really got to her. Something about it's vulnerability, like he was expecting to be scolded but hoping he wouldn't be, something she'd never, ever seen in Lee's eyes.

"No, sir. It's not extra points I'm interested in."

"Right," Kara said again. She wasn't expecting that, either. It was either the truth or a really unoriginal pick-up line, so bad it was almost believable. "You're awfully sure of yourself, aren't you? You see something you like and go for it and you think that's going to impress me."

Zak's bravado finally broke down. He dropped his eyes. "I've really frakked up, haven't I, sir?"

Kara took a sip of her drink. Gods, what was she feeling? Was it desire? Was she actually getting the hots for Zak Adama? Was she actually considering frakking Lee's younger brother? Oh, hell, this would complicate matters exponentially. _Don't do it, Kara_._ Think about your motives here. Is this about Zak or is it about Lee? You can't have the older brother so you'll take the younger? Think about it before you do something stupid._

But in an uncharacteristic move, something she hadn't done in a long, long time, she ignored her gut feeling. "Finish your beer," she told him.

"And then I leave?" he asked still with downcast eyes.

"No," Kara said. "Then _we_ leave."

_I hope the hell he's good_, was her next thought.

He was better than good. Later that night, at her apartment, as she dissolved in complete ecstasy, she knew she was hooked, in that sense anyway. Zak was the best lay she'd had since that night with Major Connelly, and she knew one night with him was not going to be enough. She had been without this for way too long. Yeah, she had definitely complicated her life, but maybe, just maybe, this time it would be worth it.

A week after they slept together for the first time, Zak took her to meet his mother. Carolanne Adama was gracious and kind. Kara liked her immediately. She could see the love between mother and son, and a small part of her was jealous that she had never known anything like that with her own mother.

A week after that she and Zak met Carolanne and her friend Henry for dinner at a nice restaurant in the city. Henry was soft-spoken, witty and intelligent. He reminded her of Colonel Burgher but with a sense of humor. Some of the loneliness of the last several years began to recede. Kara liked the feeling.

They rarely talked about Lee. She did find out that Lee was still stationed on the _Atlantia_, and that Zak hadn't talked to him since graduating from the Academy. Zak admitted to her that he and Lee had gotten into a fight after Lee accused their father of pulling strings to get Zak into Flight School and before that, the Academy. The estrangement was really bothering Zak. That much Kara could tell. He loved his older brother, really idolized him and wanted to do everything Lee had done.

She could tell that, too.

TBC…


	27. Big Surprise

Chapter 27

Big Surprise

Lee Adama was bothered by the estrangement from Zak and his mother more than he wanted to admit. He knew that he had done a stupid thing getting into it with their father on the afternoon of Zak's graduation. He had spoiled what should have been Zak's day. He should call Zak. He should apologize, but he was still afraid of what he might say. Nothing had changed in the way Lee felt about what his father had done. And he knew Zak still believed that his father had done nothing wrong.

Lee still felt strongly that Zak should not be in the military. He still felt that Zak had made a mistake in not going on to Caprica U four years ago. He still felt like Zak had listened to their father and not to his own heart.

Zak was well into Flight School now on Caprica. He knew that much. He wondered how Zak was doing. He wondered if Zak had a good instructor. Zak hadn't washed out yet, and Lee wondered if he had misjudged Zak all those years. He wondered if Zak really did have the chops to become a Viper pilot. No, he just couldn't believe it. As hard as he tried to make himself, he just couldn't believe it.

He should have known Zak would be the one to break the ice. Zak messaged him and asked him to come to their mother's birthday dinner, her forty-eighth. Tired of the estrangement, Lee accepted and arranged a three-day pass. Besides, at the end of Zaks' message was a cryptic sentence. _I have a big surprise for you._

Lee got to the house early. He knew Zak was already there because his car was in the driveway. With his mother's birthday gift in his hand, he went around to the back of the house and in through the kitchen door. Maybe it was being back on Caprica, but for some reason Kara was on his mind.

He had just called Zak's name when he saw her standing by the glass patio doors. At the sound of his voice she turned. She was dressed in black slacks and a soft blue sweater. Her hair was longer and she was a bit thinner, but she looked the same, just as he had seen her in so many dreams. Just as beautiful. No, more beautiful.

And she looked just as shocked as he felt. Her eyes opened wide and he heard the sharp intake of her breath.

Before either of them could speak, Zak came bounding into the room. Always the puppy, always the peacemaker, always the easygoing kid who just wanted everyone to get along.

"Lee," Zak launched himself into a bear hug with his brother.

"Zak. Man, good to see you." He gently pounded his brother on the back, never once taking his eyes off Kara.

Zak stepped back. "Yeah, good to see you, too. You remember Kara, don't you?"

Over four years since he'd seen her and his heart was racing like a schoolboy's. Lee swallowed and tried for nonchalance. "Kara. How are you doing?"

"Good. And you?" She had recovered from her initial shock. Her tone was neutral, not chilly, but not warm either.

"Good, really good," he answered. He finally looked at Zak. "So, she's not your surprise, is she?"

"She sure is."

Zak's ear-to-ear grin told Lee what he had been fearful of since he had first seen Kara. It wouldn't be the first time Zak had hooked up with a woman Lee knew he couldn't handle. The smile froze on his face. "Where's Mom?"

"In her room, still getting ready," Zak answered. "She changed her mind at the last minute about what she was going to wear. You know Mom. She'll be here in a minute and then we can go. Henry is meeting us at the restaurant."

"So she's still dating Henry?"

"Yep, she's still dating Henry."

Kara looked at Zak. "You didn't mention that your brother was going to be here tonight." She was smiling but there was something in her voice, an undercurrent Lee couldn't identify. "All the way from the _Atlantia._"

"I didn't tell you? Sorry. I guess it slipped my mind." He grinned sheepishly at her. "My flight instructor's been kicking my ass. I've been working oo hard."

Kara rolled her eyes at him. "Excuses, excuses." Then she smiled. It was impossible to stay angry with Zak when he gave her that remorseful puppy look.

They heard Carolanne's voice calling from her bedroom down the hall. "Zak, honey, come help me with this necklace. I got the chain all tangled. I need you to fix it."

Zak left the kitchen. "Be back in a minute," he called over his shoulder to them. "I'm sure you two have some catching up to do."

Kara was sorry to see Zak leave. While he and Lee were together, she was spared from having to talk to him. Four years since she had seen him and her heart was pounding like she'd just run a couple of miles. His hair was shorter and his jaw even more chiseled, and gods, those eyes, those incredible blue eyes. He had matured and seemed even more confident than before. Even better looking. In Lee's presence the cool flight instructor who struck fear and awe into those classes of nuggets was nowhere to be found. Instead she felt like a giddy teenager.

As soon as Zak disappeared down the hall, Lee turned to her and said in a low voice. "What in the _hell_ are you doing with my bother?"

Kara got herself under control. "Dating him," she said, her voice smug and low. "Almost two months now."

"That's just frakking great."

"It's not your business, Lee."

"The hell it's not. Zak doesn't have any sense when it comes to women."

Kara looked at him and coolly raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and I suppose you do. With all your wisdom and experience you're the one to guide him. You've been getting plenty of that, I hear. Experience. With women."

He ignored her remark because he didn't want to go there. _Not as much as you probably think._ "So where'd you meet Zak? Pick him up at McGee's or some other bar?"

"You really don't know, do you? I met him in class. I'm his flight instructor."

"You're kidding. Please, Lords of Kobol tell me you're kidding. I thought you were on the _Triton._"

"Lee, what the frak is the matter with you? Have you spent time lately in a vacuum or something? I haven't been on the _Triton_ in over two years. I'm back here at the Caprica Air Base teaching now. Every thirteen weeks I get a group of nuggets. I have to wash a few out. Most I make into pilots. I'm actually good at it. Not that you obviously give a damn about what I'm doing since you quit answering my messages four years ago."

Lee ignored her again. "You know there's an ethical issue with frakking a student. Or didn't you learn anything from when you and the major…"

Kara cut him off. "Oh, you are so damned predictable. Still throwing Connelly in my face and still Mr. Rules and Regs. You of all people should know I'm not about the rules all the time. And in this case neither is your brother. "

"He was until he met you. Those rules clearly state…"

"I don't need you quoting the articles of fraternization to me, Lee," she snapped. "I know what they say. Zak and I have been _very_ discreet. And this is _not_ interfering with my teaching him. What? You think I'm going to put him out there in a Viper if he doesn't have the chops?"

"I hope the hell not. You know he's only doing this because our father bullied him into it? He has no desire to fly. He never did."

"Well, he does now. Maybe I know a few things about your brother that you don't know." She hadn't meant for it to come out sounding like a taunt, but it did.

Lee took two long strides and was toe to toe with her. "Let's get one thing straight, you don't know the first frakking thing about my brother…or my family. Stay…away…from Zak," he said in a furious whisper.

Despite the fact that Lee was way too close to her, Kara stood her ground. Looking directly into his eyes, she said. "Or what? Are you the guy who's going to _make me_? I like your brother. I like him a lot. Zak is kind and gentle. At least one of the Adama boys knows how to treat a woman. At least Zak's not just a big tease…a kiss and run kind of guy like his older brother. At least Zak knows how to _make love_ to..."

She never got to finish the sentence. Without making a conscious decision to do so, Lee put his hand behind her head, pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. Her hands came up against his chest, and she twisted her head away. "Are you crazy?" she whispered. "Let go of me. Zak could come walking through that door any minute."

Lee wasn't worried about Zak or his mother surprising them. There was a spot in the hallway outside her bedroom that always creaked when someone stepped on it. That noise had served as a warning all the years he was growing up. He would hear them long before they could see him or Kara.

"I'm not kissing and running now. So where do you want to go with this? Want to frak right here on the kitchen counter?" He mocked before he kissed her again.

Kara went weak in the knees. She knew she should push Lee away. Zak and Carolanne were only a few doors down the hall. But she didn't. His kiss was just like she remembered from the night of the dance. Even hotter because he was angry. If there was one thing Lee Adama could do better than any man she'd ever known, even better than Zak, it was kiss. She realized that she was kissing him back.

Lee expected Kara to keep fighting him. Instead he felt her surrender completely to the kiss, felt her melt against him just like she'd done that night at the dance, felt her lips part, felt her tongue warm against his. In an instant the kiss was no longer about shutting her up, no longer about stopping her from talking about what she and Zak were doing. It was what he had dreamed about for four long years, and he was ambushed by his desire. His body betrayed his determination to stay cool and reacted instead to the feel of Kara pressed against him and the fire of the kiss. He barely managed to stifle a groan.

Rather than give her the satisfaction of knowing she still had that much power over him, he abruptly let go of her and headed for the door. "Tell Mom and Zak I'll be waiting in the car."

Kara took a deep breath, turned and grasped the edge of the counter. Her knees were about to buckle. Why now, oh frak, why now? Why did Lee have to reappear in her life when things were going so well for her? Why now when she and Zak were doing so great together? Why now when she thought she was over him? And why had he kissed her like that? Why had she let him? Why hadn't she stopped him? Oh, gods, why had she kissed him back? Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.

She took another deep breath and turned to face Zak as he and his mother came into the room.

"Lee's waiting in the car," she said and noticed that her voice sounded unnaturally chirpy.

TBC…

**AN:** Okay, fellow shippers, I had originally envisioned the "reunion" scene with Lee and Kara very differently…gentle, filled with romantic longing, sadness that she was with Zak and Lee suffering in silence, but I put them together and suddenly Lee went all alpha on me, and this scene resulted. I finally realized Lee was overwhelmed by jealousy of his younger brother. Being the academic high achiever during their youth and now the handsome, top-notch pilot had always made him feel superior to Zak even as he had always felt protective of him. Jealousy of Zak was not an emotion he had ever felt before and he didn't know how to deal with it.


	28. Having It Out

Chapter 28

Having It Out

Before the meal Lee had two drinks, and during the meal, continued quietly drinking. If he had tried to conjure his worst nightmare about Kara, he doubted he could have come up with something like this. He had been completely unprepared for seeing her, and was still reeling from their kiss. Why the frak had he done something that stupid? Whatever had he been thinking? And why the frak had Kara kissed him back like that? To torment him? To show him what he was missing? Oh, yeah, no doubt. She was probably laughing at him right now.

To have to sit across the table from her, watch her smile and talk to Zak and his mother and Henry was an exquisite form of torture. Mainly because she was completely ignoring him. Zak tried to bring him into the conversation. So did his mother. So did Henry. He answered their questions but made no further effort to participate. He was acting like a jerk and he knew it, but that didn't stop him.

Finally they left him to his silence and his drinking. They kept up a steady stream of chatter that flowed over and around him. It finally dawned on him that they had done this before, probably more than once. _Oh great. Just frakking great. She's part of the family already_.

As they were waiting for desert and coffee, Zak made a last attempt to draw Lee into the conversation. "So, Lee, how long has it been since you and Kara saw each other?"

"Lee's senior dance." Kara answered quickly, looking directly at Lee for the first time. Their eyes locked and she wouldn't look away. "Among _other_ things he showed me what a good dancer he is. He even confessed a little secret to me. Taking dancing lessons."

Carolanne smiled. "He must have trusted you a great deal if he admitted _that_ to you. I don't think there was anything I made him do when he was growing up that embarassed him more."

Lee felt his face grow warm. "We saw each other after the dance, at Karl's party, didn't we?" She hadn't forgotten. He could see it in her eyes. Damn, those beautiful eyes. She'd mentioned the dance on purpose._ Among other things? Could she possibly mean the kiss? _

"You're right," she finally answered. "How could I have forgotten about that? I did see you _very briefly_ at Karl's graduation party. Some poor girl had run into something and you were helping her to her feet. I guess the dance was what stuck in my mind." _He hadn't forgotten. She'd definitely gotten a reaction when she mentioned the dance. _

"Thing is, Zak," she continued, still looking at Lee. "Your brother and I didn't really know each other too well at the Academy. I mean obviously we couldn't have because otherwise we would have kept in touch after he graduated. Right, Lee? That's what friends do, isn't it? Keep in touch? Answer messages?"

"Right," Lee answered. "That's what friends do, Kara. Keep in touch." He dropped his eyes and sank again into a morose silence.

Finally nature called and he excused himself and went to the men's restroom. He had just finished washing his hands when Kara pushed the door open. There was another man standing further down at another sink, but Kara never even glanced at him as she grabbed Lee by the front of his shirt and shoved him back against the wall. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't offer any resistance. He was probably drunker than he thought.

The other guy left quickly without drying his hands.

"Hey, Kara, this isn't a battlestar." He grinned at her. "These restrooms aren't unisex."

"I know that, Lee. What I want to know is just what the frak your problem is? How you treat me is one thing, but how you treat your family is something else. They don't deserve you acting like such an asshole. It's your mother's birthday for Pythia's sake, not a damn funeral."

"I told you that me and my family is none of your business."

"Right. You told me that. But since I'm seeing Zak now, I think it is my business."

"Seeing him?" Lee smirked. "_Seeing_ him? That's rich. _Seeing him_ doesn't quite cover it now does it? Try _frakking_ him? What'd you do, take him home and frak him the day you met him? That's more your style."

"You know so damned much about my style, don't you? You've really been keeping up with me, haven't you? I hear from you a couple of times, after you graduated and then nothing. And I send you what, six, eight messages that you never bothered to answer. But I got your message all right. Finally it came across loud and clear."

"I wonder you had time to write at all what with spending so much time in the sack with the major,"

"Oh, for frak's sake, Lee, give it a rest with me and Connelly. I told you that would never happen again and it didn't. I don't know where you get your intel, but it's damned flawed. Yes, I ran into him a couple of times at McGee's. Yes, we had a beer or two. Yes, I've met him a couple of times for lunch or drinks since I've been stationed at the air base. I've met Colonel Burgher for lunch, too. Are you going to accuse me of frakking him? With Connelly drinks and conversation are it. He's a nice guy, Lee. There was a time after Karl graduated when I felt like Connelly was the only real _friend_ I had. Especially since somebody who _claimed_ to be my friend couldn't be bothered to even answer my messages. Not that I owe you any explanation or anything."

"Oh, right. You expect me to believe you've joined the Sisterhood of Celibacy?"

"I don't care what you believe, you frakking hypocrite. What gives _you_ the right to say anything to _me_ about going out with _anybody_? I heard plenty about you. Apollo, the gods' gift to the hot girls of Picon. He likes to party and get lap dances. I heard he whored his way through the Intel unit. And now you come down on me for dating your brother? One guy, the first guy I've dated since…since I don't remember when. What the frak is your problem?"

"I never whored my way through any Intel unit. Now whose information is flawed? There was just one woman in Intel and she meant nothing to me, not that I owe you any kind of frakking explanation either. I'm not the one with the problem."

"The hell you aren't," she snarled. "You don't even want to be my friend and yet you freak on me when you find out I'm seeing Zak. What? You don't think I'm good enough for him? You don't think the daughter of an enlisted Marine is good enough for the son of _Commander_ Adama?"

Kara stopped suddenly and blinked hard. "That's what it is, isn't it? Kara Thrace isn't good enough for an Adama. Not for you _or_ your brother. That's why you never answered my messages. That's why you don't want me seeing Zak. Oh, frak, why didn't I see this before? It's the only thing that makes sense."

He saw tears well in her beautiful eyes, and he quickly shook his head. "No, Kara, no. That's not it. Oh, gods, no. You're so wrong."

"Then what is it? Why don't you want me seeing Zak? Just spit it out, Lee. I want to hear it."

_Because of the way I feel about you, that's why. And I'm crazy jealous of Zak, that's why_. _And I've been a fool for the last four years, that's why. _But he couldn't get any of those words out. Instead he realized he was going to kiss her again. And she was going to let him. She was pulling him toward her. Or was he so drunk he couldn't stand up straight? For whatever reason, her mouth was getting closer to his.

"Back at the house," he said softly, "I was angry when I kissed you."

"I know," she answered just as softly.

Their mouths were only inches apart. "I just want to show you...to..."

Their lips touched tentatively at first, and then became a gentle whisper of a kiss, a warm, slow melding of lips and tongues that he felt in his soul. A kiss that transcended physical passion and spoke to his heart. He was drunk, but he knew one thing for certain, he had never felt like this before about a woman. Ever. And he had felt this way about her since the Academy. He had to tell her. As wrong as he knew it was, he had to tell her what he was feeling. He touched her cheek, spoke almost against her mouth. "Kara, I…"

The restroom door opened and Zak came in. "What…what's going on?"

Kara let go of the front of Lee's shirt and backed away from him. For a long time afterward Lee would remember the look in her eyes and try to divine it's meaning. Was it regret or fear or could it possibly have been a mirror of his own unspoken yearning?

"It's okay, Zak," she said as she turned away from Lee. "I was just having a little heart-to-heart with your brother about his piss-poor attitude tonight. He doesn't seem to realize just how lucky he is to have a family as close as yours...to have a family at all."

Lee held up his hands in a placating gesture. "She's right, Zak. I acted like an asshole tonight and I'm sorry. You and mom deserve better. You all deserve better. Happy now, Kara?"

Kara smiled, although Lee thought it looked forced, and then she went over and put her arm through Zak's. "Finally, he's come to his senses. Now shouldn't we go back to the table before your mother thinks we all fell in? I'm sure the coffee's getting cold."

...

After dinner that night Zak took Kara back to her apartment. And stayed. Henry took Lee and Carolanne back to her house. It took both of them to get Lee upstairs and into his bed.

The next morning Zak called his mother's and asked to speak to Lee.

"Hey, genius, how's the hangover?" Zak's voice was cool.

"Almost gone, thank to some really strong coffee. I've apologized to Mom about a hundred times. I didn't mean to get so drunk. I haven't done that in a long time. I haven't been that big a jerk in a long time, either. I don't know what got into me."

"Yeah, well while you're trying to decide what got into you, maybe you can tell me what you were doing in the men's room last night. It looked to me like you were trying awful hard to renew that friendship with Kara that you both said wasn't really a friendship. I asked her and she told me it was between you and her. What the hell is she talking about?"

Lee took a deep breath. He couldn't tell Zak how he felt about Kara. He'd been crazy last night to have thought of telling Kara. He must have been really drunk. He couldn't screw up whatever Zak had going with her right now.

"Nothing, Zak. Nothing. She was being nicer than I deserved. I was drunk. She was giving me hell for the way I was acting and I decided to kiss her. I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. I'm really sorry. She's beautiful and I was drunk. It's no excuse, I know, but that's what was going on. It was my fault, my mistake, not Kara's. I'm lucky she didn't break my jaw."

"Just being the arrogant asshole Viper jock, or does this go back to the Academy when you had a thing for her?"

"What gives you the idea I had a thing for her back at the Academy? Because if Kara said something like that…"

"Kara said nothing. I just know how much you talked about her when we were on that ski vacation your senior year."

"Look, Zak, that was a long time ago. A _long_ time ago. Nothing ever happened with me and Kara. You have my word of honor on that."

"So what was she saying at dinner last night about your senior dance? About you showing her what a good dancer you are...she was really talking about dancing and not frakking?"

"All we did that night was dance. And I walked her back to her dorm because the guy she walked over with had left already. But that's all. Before the dance I hadn't talked to her in months. Ask Kara if you don't believe me."

"No need. I believe you. Well, here's your chance to redeem yourself with me and Kara. This afternoon a group of us is doing the traditional ball game on the playing field down by the base. Nuggets versus a group of pilots and instructors. We're going to kick ass. I know you're going back to the _Atlantia_ tomorrow so I thought you might like to join us, okay? But you've got to play for Kara's team. Mine is nuggets only. And bring the camera you gave Mom for her birthday. She wants us to get some pictures."

"Okay."

"And if you mess with Kara again, I might just have to let her kick your ass."

"Let _her_ kick my…oh, frak. I thought you were serious. You're just screwing with me, aren't you?"

Zak started laughing. "Mostly, Bro. I mean it's not often I get to make my big brother sweat. I know Kara better than to think she'd mess with you. You are _not_ her type. I knew it had to be something you started."

"How serious are you and Kara?"

"I'd marry her tomorrow if she'd have me."

"That's crazy. You've known her what, two months?"

"It doesn't take long when it's the right woman. She's the one, Lee. I knew it the first time I saw her."

"Zak, you've done this before and gotten hurt. I mean shouldn't you give something time to develop between you two?"

"It's been two months, Lee, and things just keep getting better."

"So how does Kara feel about all this?"

"She's never told me she loves me, but I think she cares. I mean she must. Otherwise why would she keep seeing me?"

"Probably because she thinks you're a good lay."

"That's real funny, Lee. Don't push your luck. Look I hope this is not going to turn into the talk where you warn me about her."

"Why do you think I would I do that?"

"Kara told me you probably would. Well you don't have to. She's already done your job for you. Last night as a matter of fact."

"What do you mean?"

"She told me that she's no good at relationships, that she always manages to screw things up. She said that's she's better with short-term things or one-niters or nothing but friends."

"You should listen to her, Zak. She's telling you that for a reason."

"Yeah, well then she turned around and told me something that made me think she _could_ have a long-term relationship with the right guy."

"Oh, and what was that?"

"She told me that when she was a third-year at the academy she fell pretty hard for some guy and that she had feelings about him for a long time, maybe still did."

_Major Connelly, _Lee thought. Damn, he should have known.

"Yeah, she said he was a year ahead of her," Zak went on. When I asked her why they weren't together, she said he thought of her as the world's biggest screw-up. I think she put it _forgot I was alive after he graduated_. She told me she worked really hard at getting over him. That makes me think she could have a long-term relationship. I've just got to be patient and not rush her. She's warming up to to the idea of long-term with me. I know it, bro."

"Wait a minute," Lee said. "A year ahead of her?"

"Yeah, genius. That means somebody in your class. You probably know who she's talking about, but I don't want to know."

_Obviously not Connelly. Then who? …Oh, frak, no. Could she possibly have meant? Not possible. Or was it? _His mouth felt dry. He took a deep breath. Gods, all this time could he have been wrong? Could he have been that frakking wrong? That frakking stupid? He couldn't go there right now. He just couldn't. He pushed the thought from his mind. There had to be some other explanation. There was another explanation. He was sure. Zak must have misunderstood what she said.

"Okay, Zak. No more discussion about Kara. You're my brother, and I want you to be happy. If Kara makes you happy, then what can I say?"

"Thanks. Thanks, Lee. So, will we see you this afternoon?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

TBC…


	29. An Engagement and a Funeral

Chapter 29

An Engagement and a Funeral

The ball game was fairly evenly matched. At one point it looked like Zak and the other nuggets were going to win, but Lee, Kara and their team tied the score after a hard press and won it with an incredible last-minute turnover and kick by Lee just as the clock ran out. Major Connelly provided the block that made Lee's score possible and he found himself actually high-fiving the major afterward.

"Great kick, Adama," Connelly said.

"Great block, sir, you made it possible."

"We couldn't let a bunch of nuggets show us up." Connelly bent over and wiped his face with the bottom of his t-shirt. "Man, I'm going to hurt tomorrow. I'm getting too old to run up and down a field with a bunch of twenty-somethings."

For the first time Lee noticed a wedding ring on Connelly's hand.

Kara jogged up to them. "Great going, guys. For a while there I thought they were going to kick our asses, but you two saved the day. Not bad for a couple of _old men_. Sorry, Lee. Just one _old man_." She winked at Connelly and trotted over to the side of the field and opened a bottle of water.

Connelly nodded toward her. "Zak's a lucky guy."

Lee could hardly believe his ears. "What's that?"

"He didn't graduate third in his class, but Zak's a whole lot smarter than some who did." He turned and started off the field.

Lee followed him "Wait a minute. Wait just a damned minute, _sir_. I thought you and Kara…"

"You didn't believe her, did you? You thought that Kara and I had a romantic relationship. Well, you probably won't believe it coming from me either, but she and I are only friends. That's all we've been for years now."

Lee stopped and watched Connelly walk over and get some water. He and Kara talked for a minute and then Kara smiled at him and nodded. Connelly put an arm around her, hugged her, and then got his gear bag and left the field. Lee walked over to Kara and they just looked at each other.

"I told you he's a nice guy," Kara said. "I told you we were nothing but friends." She took another swallow of water. "What was he telling you? That you were stupid?"

Lee looked down. "Yeah. In a round about way. Yeah."

"He said he was going to do that. I told him not to, but..." she shrugged.

"Kara, I'm really sorry. About the way I acted last night, about…about a lot of things. The major's right about one thing. I've been stupid. I should have answered your messages, I should have…"

Zak came jogging over to the sidelines and started rummaging in Lee's gear bag. "You forgot the camera, didn't you? Nope. Here it is." He took it out of the bag. "Mom wants us to get some pictures for her, okay." He called another nugget over and handed him the camera. "Take a couple of pictures for us, will you? The three of us first. Lee, you hold the game ball. After a kick like you made, you earned it. I'll just have to settle for holding Kara."

"No fair, Zak" Lee said without looking at Kara. "You got the better deal."

"Eat your heart out, Bro" Zak smirked.

"What heart?" Kara laughed as she buried her face against Zak.

"Look this way and smile, guys," the nugget said, and Lee heard the shutter click.

...

Two weeks later he got a call from an ecstatic Zak. "I did it, Lee. I passed basic flight. Not the best score on my check ride, but I passed. I'm getting my wings in two weeks. I want you to be there."

"I'll really try. That's great, Zak. So what next?"

"The _Columbia_. Major Connelly's old roommate is the CAG there and the major has already warned me not to play cards with him. He said the only one who might give him a run for his money is Kara."

"Yeah, well, I've heard Kara would give any card shark a run for his money."

"Gods, Lee, I'm going to miss her."

"I'm sure you are."

"Look, I want you to promise that if something happens to me…Kara will need somebody to…lean on. I want that to be you. Take care of her, will you? Promise me."

"Gods, Zak, don't even say something like that. It's bad luck. Nothing's going to happen to you."

Zak was silent for a moment. "I know you care about her, Lee. And I know she cares about you. That's why if something happens, I want it to be you. You'll be there for her, won't you?"

Lee took a couple of deep breaths. "Zak…"

"It's okay. Bro, it's okay. I asked Kara to marry me."

Lee felt like he'd been gut-punched. "That…that's…what did she say?"

Zak's happiness radiated through the lines. "What do you think, Bro? I knew she couldn't resist my charm forever."

"I guess that means she said _yes_." He swallowed hard. "So when's the wedding?"

"We haven't even talked about that. It's way too soon. Man, it's enough to know she loves me enough to marry me. I don't care when. She gave me a ring last night. I think it belonged to her father. Something she found when she was cleaning out her mother's stuff. You know Kara really loved her dad. She told me the ring was to remind me I was spoken for. Like I was going to forget."

"I can't imagine you forgetting Kara. Ever. Well, congratulations to you both. I'm sure if anybody can make her happy, it's you."

"Gods, I can only hope I make her half as happy as she makes me. Look, when we do it, I want you to stand up with me. Best man and all that."

"You can count on it," Lee said, even though he felt like a cold fist was closing around her heart.

It was the last time he talked to Zak.

...

Two days later he had just completed a gunnery training run and landed his Viper on the _Atlantia_ when he was told to see the CAG.

"Reporting as ordered, sir."

"Please, sit down, Lieutenant."

Lee heard someone else come into the room and turned to see the ship's priest. Without a word being said, he knew the news was bad.

"Who?" He swallowed hard and had a difficult time getting the words out. "My father?"

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, your brother Zak."

Lee shook his head. He didn't believe it, and yet he heard his own voice ask, "How?"

After that, he heard only bits of what the CAG was saying to him. "Training accident…don't have all the details…got him out of the Viper as soon as they could…nothing could be done." And finally he heard, "…getting you back to Caprica on a special flight…Commander Adama's request…Raptor's leaving in thirty minutes… Don't worry. I'll take care of the necessary paperwork."

Lee stood, functioning automatically. "Thank you, sir."

The CAG came over to him and put his hand on Lee's shoulder. "I'm so very sorry, Lee. It could have been any one of us. Every time we go out there we put it on the line."

...

Lee moved through the next morning in a fog. His mother was beyond consoling, almost beyond functioning, so funeral arrangements fell to Lee and his father. His father was in the base priest's office when Lee arrived. For the first time William Adama looked old and tired to his son.

"Please come in, Lieutenant, " the priest said. "I'm so very sorry for the loss of your brother." He gestured to Lee's father. "Commander Adama has indicated he wants a full military funeral. Do you have anything you would like to add?"

Lee shook his head.

His father cleared his throat and spoke then, for the first time. "You're not going to use the funeral to say anything that would hurt and embarrass your mother, are you?"

Lee's gut was churning. He felt something inside him snap. "What, Dad? You mean like Zak didn't belong in the military? Didn't belong in a Viper?"

"Get a grip, Lee."

Suddenly he was toe-to-toe with his father and all semblance of civility was gone. "Like Zak would be alive today, right now, if it weren't for _you_? 'The wings make the man', right? 'Suck it up, son. You can't be a dreamer and make it in the service.' That kind of thing? Is that what you mean?"

"Lee, please."

But Lee was not through. Everything that had been simmering for years came boiling over. "Zak should have gone to Caprica University, but no, you had to pull strings and get him into the Academy. He did _not_ belong in the military. And he sure as hell didn't belong in a Viper. He only did it to please you. Because he loved you. Because you'd made him feel like you'd never consider him a man unless he wore those damned wings. He was so damned afraid of failing _you_. But don't worry. I don't need to stand up and say you killed your son. Killed my brother. Mother already knows Zak is dead because of you and so do I."

The priest had gotten up and come around his desk during Lee's outburst. Now he put his hand on Lee's arm and gently pulled him away from his father. "Please, Lieutenant Adama. This is not the time or place for such vitriol. Your brother deserves better of his family. This is about him, not you and your father."

"The priest is right, Lee. We can do this later if you feel like you have to." He noticed for the first time that his father's voice was hoarse and scratchy, like he had been shouting. Or crying.

All the fight went out of Lee. He sat down and slumped in one of the chairs.

The priest put his hand on Lee's shoulder. "Is there anything else I can do for you? Anyone else who should be notified? Anyone else you would like to include in the service?"

"Kara," Lee said. Oh, gods, he had gotten in so late last night and his mother had been so hysterical that he hadn't been able to call Kara.

The priest walked back to his desk and looked at another form. "Lieutenant Kara Thrace, yes. She was on your brother's Request of Notification form. I went to see her late yesterday. She already knew, of course. She was at the airfield when it…happened."

"Their relationship was really that serious, then?" His father asked. "I got a letter from Zak asking me to be there when he got his wings. He hinted at something else. A surprise he had for me."

"Lieutenant Thrace is listed on the Notification form as his fiancé."

Bill Adama turned to Lee. "Did you know about this?"

"Zak told me a couple of days ago. I should go see her," Lee stood up.

His father shook his head. "No, you need to go back to your mother. I know she needs you. I'll go see Lieutenant Thrace."

Lee looked at the priest. "How was Kara…handling it?"

For a moment the priest seemed to be pondering his answer. "She was…very stoic. But some react that way when faced with a tragedy of this nature. They shut down completely and show little or no emotion. Grief is a personal thing. Lack of emotion doesn't mean lack of feeling. Sometimes just the opposite. There's too much emotion to even process. Something like going into shock."

Lee nodded. Yes, grief was a very personal thing. He left Kara to his father and went back home to his mother, to her inconsolable grief and his own.

TBC…

**AN:** Despite the fact that many of us don't have a lot invested in the Zak/Kara relationship or Zak as a character, this was still a very difficult chapter to write. The subject matter is sad, but necesary for Lee and Kara's story to continue. I've also included some background for the confrontation Lee and his father had in the Miniseries.


	30. Starbuck and Apollo

Chapter 30

Starbuck and Apollo

Lee stood beside his mother at the cemetery, holding her, until the priest had finished the graveside ceremony. Then he placed the wings on Zak's casket, the wings that Zak would never wear in life.

Kara stood across from them, beside his father, and he tried not to look at her. At them. His father had brought her to the funeral. He'd seen them get out of a staff car.

Lee stepped back and put his arm around his mother again. He saw his father reach down and take Kara's hand. He saw her dazed look and how the rifle reports from the twenty-one gun salute made her jump with each volley. And then it was over and they stood beside the grave to accept the condolences of the mourners.

Finally his mother said, "Kara should come to the house. Your father is welcome to come, too."

"I'll go ask Kara. Wait here for me."

He found her standing with his father near his father's car. He had noticed that his father rated a driver now. A young Marine in dress uniform stood stiffly at attention waiting to open the rear door of the vehicle for his father.

Lee waited to speak until Kara turned to him. She shielded her eyes against the afternoon sun and he saw that they looked blank, almost dead. "Mother would like," his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and started over. "Mother and I would like for you to come back to the house with us for some food and…company if you'd like." He ignored his father.

After a moment, she nodded. "Give me a minute?" She turned back to Commander Adama. "I guess I'll be riding with them. Thank you for bringing me, sir."

Lee went back to his mother and waited. He finally saw Kara put out her hand and his father take hers in both of his. They stood that way for a long time while his father talked to her. Once he looked toward Lee and his mother. Then Kara nodded. Apparently they had reached some kind of understanding.

While the Marine opened the car door for his father, Kara walked a short distance to where Colonel Burgher and Major Connelly were waiting. She talked to them for a minute and gestured toward Lee and his mother. Both of them hugged her before she finally turned toward Lee.

...

Back at the house, friends came and went. His aunt and Henry made sure there was plenty of food and drink. In the early evening his mother excused herself and went to her bedroom. Shortly afterward, Lee looked around and couldn't find Kara. She had ridden with them in the family car so he didn't think she had left. He asked his aunt and several others who still remained. All he got were shaking heads and _haven't seen her lately_.

Then Henry came to get him, took him to the patio door and pointed outside. Lee found Kara sitting in a chair on the patio. Sitting in the dark with a bottle of something she had taken from the bar.

"Kara," he said gently, "you shouldn't be sitting out here by yourself. Come back inside."

"Always rescuing me, aren't you Lee?" She turned up the bottle and drank. "I can't take it in there any more. I can't take all that polite talk and everyone saying, 'I'm so sorry, Kara.' I can't take seeing your mother like that any longer. So…destroyed."

"Mother took something and went to bed and almost everybody else is gone. Come on in."

She still shook her head.

"Look," he leaned over and took her hand, "we'll go up to my room. There's no people up there. Just you and me. Bring your bottle. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. We'll just sit. I don't want you out here by yourself."

She got up then and they went in, up the back stairs. He led her into his room and shut the door.

"Don't turn on the light. I can see just fine," she said.

The moonlight, bright and silvery, was coming through the two large windows, highlighting objects in the room. The telescope pointed at the stars, the model of the battlestar on top of the bookcase, his hastily packed bag open on the floor at the foot of the bed. Kara walked over to one of the window seats, sat with her back against the side and put her feet up.

The moonlight on her hair made Lee think of another night with Kara. The night of his senior dance. A night that now seemed like it was a thousand years ago, or maybe just yesterday. There had still been a chance for them on that night. He had made so many mistakes since then. Stupid mistakes. And Zak had come along. And now there was no chance at all.

He went over to her and took the bottle from her and drank. It was something strong that burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. He took another fiery swallow before he handed the bottle back to her.

She took it without looking at him, but she didn't drink.

Still looking out at the moonlight, she said, "When I was a little girl, maybe seven or eight, my mother took me to an air show on the base. We were on Picon then. I watched those Vipers fly over, pulling all sorts of fancy maneuvers and I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and I knew, just knew, that's what I wanted to do. And when the pilots landed, she took me to meet them, and I was expecting guys, you know, to get out of those Vipers. But one of the pilots was a woman, and when she took off her helmet and climbed down, she smiled at me and gave me a thumb's up. I dreamed about that for years. The call sign on her Viper was _Sidewinder_. Funny how I still remember that. I still remember her call sign. A long time ago you said you'd tell me about where you got my call sign. I want you to tell me about _Starbuck_."

Lee went to his bookcase. There wasn't much light, but he knew exactly what he was looking for, the first of a series of twelve slim volumes. He pulled it out and took it to Kara. "Here."

She tilted the book so that the moonlight shone on its cover. "_The Adventures of Starbuck and Apollo._ You got my call sign from a kid's book?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't get too many books when I was growing up. I'm not surprised I missed this one."

Lee smiled. "My grandfather wrote it. There're eleven more of them."

"The lawyer?"

"No, my maternal grandfather. He ran the family business, which was cargo transport, just like his father had, but according to my mother, he really wanted to write children's books. So he wrote these. A friend illustrated them. He would probably have written more but he…died in an accident when I was thirteen."

"So what are they about?"

"In a nutshell. Apollo is a show dog, a Golden Retriever, and after he wins best of show at the Caprica Kennel Club, some crooks dognap him with plans to ransom him to his rich owners. They were keeping him in an abandoned warehouse, when along comes Starbuck, a street-wise mutt. The book illustrator makes her look fierce and tough. When I was a little kid I used to put my hand over the picture of Starbuck confronting the bad guys. It scared me."

Kara said, "So I'm the street-wise mutt and you're the show dog?"

"What, don't you think it fits? Me all spit-shined like you once pointed out and you all tough and _I can take care of myself_."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. So what happens to them?"

Starbuck springs Apollo, they get away from the bad guys and that's the end of volume one. I'm leaving out a lot. Then ten volumes where they have all sorts of adventures together before Apollo finally gets home again in volume twelve, with Starbuck, of course, who's adopted by Apollo's owners and everybody lives happily ever after. They're kids' books, okay. My grandfather wasn't trying to win the Aerilon Prize for Literature."

"Yeah, kids books. Who lives happily ever after in real life?"

"After my first year at the Academy, that summer I reread these books and I saw them in a completely different light. There's Apollo, the Golden Retriever, the show dog, and he was really all the golden kids in school, the star athletes, the student body presidents, the beauty queens, the popular kids. And there's Starbuck, all the kids who weren't one of those. The books are really about friendship and trust, about getting along with someone who's different, about having each other's backs. As a kid I just thought they were great stories. Now I know how much I really learned from them."

"It sounds like those little books made a big impression on you."

"That's where I got my call sign. Not because of who my father is or some other reason. I loved these books. When I was a kid, I used to read them over and over. In school I _was_ Apollo. I _was_ the high-achiever. I _was_ the student body president. I _was_ the captain of my ball team."

"The guy every girl wanted to date?"

He shrugged. "I always had a girlfriend."

"I'll bet you did."

"But I never found my Starbuck until I met you. Yeah, Kara, I realized not too long after I met you that you were my Starbuck."

"So, did Starbuck have Apollo's puppies?" she tried not to laugh and snorted instead.

"Lords of Kobol, Kara. You really know how to ruin a moment, don't you?"

Why did she and Lee always have to do that? When they got close to admitting any kind of feelings, the other one would say something stupid.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I was just kidding. I didn't mean to ruin your moment. You know how I am. I was just playing with you." As she said the words, she felt something kick alive in her after days of feeling like she was dead.

Lee's breath caught. Gods, it felt good to hear her say that. Just like she used to. To hear some animation come back into her voice. To sound like Kara again. A tiny spark of hope flared in his chest.

"So who are we now?" she asked. "Lee and Kara who fight and hurt each other and ruin each other's moments, or Starbuck and Apollo, the mutt and the golden boy, who rescue each other and learn to be friends and learn to trust and have each other's backs?"

"We're both, Kara, we always will be."

"Yeah, well I think I like Starbuck and Apollo better."

"So does that mean you want to have my puppies?"

Kara grinned. "Am I going to have to get up out of this comfortable window seat and come kick your ass?"

TBC…


	31. Dreams Come True

Warnings: Mildly explicit sexual content

Chapter 31

Dreams Come True

Kara looked out the window and up at the stars. "I don't want to be here anymore,"

Lee hoped she couldn't hear his disappointment. "I know it's getting late. I know you're tired. I'll go get mother's car keys and take you back to your apartment or wherever you want to go."

"I don't mean here in your room with you, Lee, I mean here on Caprica. I want to be out there," she raised the bottle and gestured toward the heavens. "Out there where the stars are. I've talked to your father. He's getting me assigned to his battlestar. After the _Triton_ I never thought I'd want to go back out there, but I do."

Lee sat down on the side of his bed. "Are you sure? Please don't make a decision like that while you're…upset."

"Is that what I am now, Lee, upset?" she asked quietly.

"Aren't you?"

"Right now I'm numb. And you're right. I'm tired. Tired of teaching, tired of the nuggets, tired of the responsibility for all those other lives. It's time to move on. Time to get back to what I do best. Something I've never screwed up. Flying a Viper."

Lee found he didn't have any reply for her. Instead the question that came out surprised him. "Did you love Zak?"

Kara didn't answer him for so long he thought she wasn't going to, but finally she asked. "What is love?"

"What?"

"Love, Lee. What is love?"

"You're asking _me_?"

"Yeah, Lee. I'm asking you. You're the smart one. Define love for me."

"I shouldn't have to define it for you Kara. Being in love is something you understand. Something you know."

"Like enjoying someone's company? Sleeping with someone?"

"Love is more than that. You know it is."

"What do I know, Lee? Is love the person you feel comfortable with? The person who never fights with you but never challenges you? Who shows you with his eyes and his touch that he adores you? Who makes you laugh and never makes you cry? Or is he the man who infuriates you and makes you think? Who makes you want to be better than you are? Who can melt you with just a look or a touch? Who sets your heart and soul on fire? Who makes you feel like you don't need a Viper to fly? You tell me."

"I don't know, Kara. I don't know what you want me to say."

"Then how can you ask me a question like that? How can you ask me if I loved Zak? What business is it our yours anyway?" She turned up the bottle.

"Because Zak loved you."

She swallowed hard and almost choked. Finally she said, "I know he did. And I really cared for Zak. Really. No one has ever treated me as special as he did. We were good together and not just…" she shrugged. Lee knew what she meant. "I never felt like I had to prove anything to him. We never fought. He adored me, made me laugh, never made me cry. If _that's_ what love is, then, yeah, I guess I loved him."

"He had you listed on his Request of Notification form as his fiancé. He told me you were going to marry him."

"We talked about it. Yeah, I told him that down the road we would."

"You said you'd marry him. You gave him a ring, but you question whether what you felt for him was love. Kara, he deserved better than that."

"Lee, please don't do this to me. I did love him, okay. There. I've said it. I did love him. Look, I haven't slept much since Zak…since the accident. I'm tired and half-drunk and I don't want to talk about Zak any more."

"Kara, you know whether you love somebody or not. I don't care how you define it. It's something you just know."

Kara had finally had enough. "Oh, and aren't you true love's poster boy?" she snapped. "All settled down now and in love, are you, Lee? You couldn't even tell me what love is."

"I know what it feels like to love someone…to love a woman."

"Right. Well good for you. Is she the Intel babe on Picon or have you hooked up again with the bartender back here on Caprica or is she one of your other conquests?"

Lee felt his temper flare and snapped back at her, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Kara refused to take the bait and simply turned the bottle up again. She was tired of talking about love to Lee. He didn't have a clue. He hadn't understood a thing she'd said to him.

He forced himself to calm down. He should have known better than to go there with her. "I'm sorry. This is pointless."

"It sure is."

"You know, Kara, before Zak there was us."

"_Us_? What the frak are you talking about? There was never any _us_."

"At the Academy. The dance. I thought…"

"Well you thought wrong, Lee. Take the word _us_ out of your vocabulary. There was a time I thought we might be...more than friends, but you let me know how wrong I was about that four years ago. That hurt. You got no idea how much that hurt."

"I was stupid and I was wrong."

"Yeah, we covered that already. There's nothing left to say on that topic. I mean it, Lee. Drop it."

Defeated, he did as she asked and turned to the other subject that was on his mind. "You look like you bonded pretty good with my father."

"I guess."

"Well you should understand before you go to the _Galactica_, before you start serving on his battlestar that he's responsible for…"

"Don't start, Lee. I won't listen to you rant about what a bad guy your father is. I won't get dragged into something that's between you and him. I think you're wrong to blame him for Zak wanting to be a pilot. And you're completely wrong accusing him of being responsible for Zak's death. But that's between you and him. I'm not getting in the middle of it so drop that, too."

Lee got up and walked over to the other window and looked out at the moonlit backyard where he and Zak had played as children. He could see their old tree swing on the other side of the koi pond and remembered Zak shrieking with delight when Lee pushed him higher and higher. They were young then, maybe seven and nine. Their lives were still ahead of them. And now Zak was gone.

So many memories flooded him that he couldn't grasp them all. He'd always tried to protect Zak. Why did he feel like he had he failed Zak now? Like he had failed to be the big brother he should have been? Should he have done more to keep Zak out of a Viper? Could he have done more?

Zak had loved him and he had loved Zak. It was a bond that he believed would never be broken. They should both have lived to be old men. He should have watched Zak's children grow up. And now Zak was gone.

"I'm going to miss him so much," he said more to the night than to Kara, and his voice cracked. He swallowed hard and drew a ragged breath. Since that horrible moment in his CAG's office he had kept his grief under an icy control, and now he could feel the ice breaking. "He was my brother, and I can't believe…he's…gone. I can't believe I'll never see him again. I can't believe I'll never pick up the phone again and hear his voice. I used to answer the phone and he'd say, 'Hi, genius.'"

His voice cracked again as hot tears trembled for a moment against his lower lashes and then spilled over. He shut his eyes tightly trying to hold back the flood. He wasn't ashamed to cry in front of Kara. He just felt that if he started, he would never be able to stop. Like his tears would come from the bottomless well of his grief and drown him.

He wasn't aware that Kara had left the window seat until her arms were wrapped around him. "Lee, oh, gods, Lee. I'm so sorry. I'd give my life if it would bring him back to you. I'm so…so…sorry…"

His arms came up around her, and they stood for a long time holding each other tightly, together, yet each struggling separately with the emotion of loss. The loss of a brother. The loss of a lover. The future stretching ahead of them, a future without Zak in it. Lee was barely aware of the comfort he was drawing simply from holding her. He just knew that he didn't feel as lost with her in his arms.

Despite the comfort of Lee's arms, Kara's inner voice was screaming at her. _Tell him that it's your fault Zak died. Tell him that his father didn't kill Zak. Tell him that you passed Zak on that last check ride when you shouldn't have. Tell him Zak busted three critical moves any one of which should have disqualified him. Tell him that Zak failed basic flight. Tell him that Zak had no feel for flying. Tell him that Zak had no business in a Viper. Tell him. Turn him against you instead of his father. Make him hate you. Tell him. Finish it for both of you._

She took a deep breath and drew back slightly. "Lee, there's something I need to say… something you need to know..."

She was looking into his eyes in the moonlight, gathering the courage to go on, when suddenly it wasn't about Zak any more. It was the crackle of electricity before a storm when it jumps across the summer sky and strikes in a bolt of lightening. Like the way love can take a heart and burn away all of its armor. Like the way his touch and the look in his eyes could melt her now as easily as they had the night of the dance. Kara stopped in mid-sentence, unable to remember exactly what she was going to say.

Lee heard the almost inaudible intake of her breath as their universe shifted. He, too, lost his bearings for a few moments and forgot where they were. For the briefest of moments he thought that Kara was in his arms in the moonlight at his senior dance. He thought he actually heard music. _Every time my heart beats…You must hear it saying…Just how much I want you…Just how much I care._

Kara's eyes asked the question and he answered her, lifted her chin and kissed her the way he had kissed her the night of the dance. And she kissed him back the same way, melted into him the same way, put her hand behind his head and pulled him to her the same way.

The effect was like touching a spark to tylium vapor. Desire blazed, swift and white-hot, consumed grief in the span of a heartbeat, pulled fuel from their heightened emotions and fed hungrily on other, deeper feelings, long suppressed, barely acknowledged.

He knew what was going to happen if he didn't stop. He knew he should stop before it went any further, before it was too late, but he didn't. Instead he started unbuttoning her uniform jacket, pulling it down her arms so he could get his mouth against the soft skin of her throat and then her shoulder.

Kara was so overwhelmed by the wild extremes of emotion that tore through her after they kissed that for a dozen seconds she was too dizzy to do anything except hold on to him. Her grief and her guilt and her deepest desire waged war, and desire won. She knew she should stop Lee, but he already had her jacket down her arms and his mouth was traveling almost roughly up her shoulder, into the hollow of her neck. Her head fell back and a soft _oh_ escaped her lips.

She shouldn't do this. She couldn't do this. It wasn't _oh_ she meant to say, it was _no_. But by then she was already lost to a hunger she hadn't known she was capable of feeling. Lost to a hunger that was as elemental as breathing. Lost to the hunger of all those hot, sweet dreams that were suddenly coming true. With shaking fingers she reached for the buttons of his jacket. Clothes fell, pulled off carelessly, dropped unheeded on the floor. Less than a minute later, they were naked on his bed.

She remembered the way he had pulled her to him almost four years ago on the stairs in the Admin building. After he'd saved her career. He had kissed her then, gently, on the top of her head as she had cried on his shoulder, and she had loved him, for just a moment, she had loved him. She'd felt it again at the dance. Maybe she had loved him even then. Maybe she had never stopped loving him. Maybe she would always love him.

His mouth moved to her neck. Four years ago when she had let herself feel something for this man, he had walked out of her life without a backward glance. He had hurt her. And he would do it again. Only this time he would do more than just kiss her and run. If she let him…if she let him…

But she had hesitated too long, and his mouth was back on her lips. His fingers moved down her body and sent sparks dancing along skin, spreading outward and down. His fingers moved again, across her ribs, trailing fire across the flat muscles of her stomach. She moaned softly as they reached their goal. His lips followed the path of his hand. His fingers moved, tightened against her, moved again. She could hardly get her breath.

This man knew her. This man who had come to her over and over in dreams and who knew just how and where to touch her and kiss her. Better than any dream, better than her wildest imaginings. She gave herself to him. Even knowing he would leave her like he had done before. Even knowing he would hurt her like he had done before. She wanted him so badly now that she didn't care what happened beyond this moment.

Lee was inside her when he knew, finally that this act of passion would be so much more than physical for him. He felt the last wall between them crumbling. He felt her surrender her heart the way he had already given his to her. He felt a surge of primitive joy that he had been right, that he had always been right about how much more than just sex this could be.

They were near the top, so near, so high, and it was so good, and then they were there, and Kara took him with her, wrapped her arms tightly around him and took him over the edge with her, over the edge, tumbling down, down in a hot, wild, spiraling orgasmic freefall. And all the while she was crying softly against his ear, "Lee, oh Lee, oh Lee."

And for the longest time in his life, Lee Adama couldn't think at all. He could only feel, could only give himself to the magic of that silvery moonlit night, could only know in his heart that in their joining there was the deepest mystery and the hottest wildfire and a thousand hot, sweet dreams rolled into one.

For a long time afterward neither spoke. They simply held each other, still breathing hard, stunned by what had just happened. Finally Lee had to know, had to ask her what it had meant to her. He couldn't trust his heart to know what had happened. He had to hear her say it.

"What was this about, Kara?"

"What?"

He repeated the question, knowing it wasn't the right thing to say, but unable to stop himself. He had to know. "What was this about, Kara? _Who_ was this about?"

"It was about us," she finally said quietly, and against his arm he felt her jaw begin to tremble.

And then she said something that he would always remember. The words that would haunt him as much as the passion they had shared.

Her voice already filled with tears, she said. "It's _always_ been about us."

He felt her shut him out then, felt her close herself off from him even as she began to cry. Felt her shake her head when he touched her cheek.

She knew the pain that was coming, and the guilt. She knew what tomorrow would bring. She knew the hopelessness of their situation. And even as the tears came, she began rebuilding the wall around her heart, the wall that only Lee Adama had been able to get through, shoring it up with her guilt and her pain and her fear.

Kara finally cried herself out as he held her, helpless to comfort her, struggling by then with his own guilt, his own pain and his own betrayal of his brother's love.

Exhausted and emotionally spent, she finally slept, as he lay awake, for hours until at last, when the moon had set, he slipped quietly out of bed, showered, dressed and packed his bag. He picked her uniform off the floor, hung it on the back of the closet and put her underwear and shoes on his desk.

He had to go before she woke up. He had to be gone before he saw the regret and the pain and the condemnation in her eyes. He knew he could never have stood that. It was bad enough to know that he had finally felt something with Kara that he had never felt before, and that by an act as selfish in its timing as it had been inevitable, he had lost her forever. Lost her forever just at the moment he finally realized how much he loved her. Lee Adama loved Kara Thrace and no matter what happened to them for the rest of their lives, he knew he would love her until the day he died.

But before he left, before he went downstairs and called a transport, before he talked to Henry who heard him and came into the kitchen, before he did any of that, he sat down on the bed. She was on her side, breathing softly and evenly, her back turned to him, her arm uncovered. He carefully pulled the sheet up. But before he covered her, he leaned over and gently kissed her shoulder.

"You set my heart and soul on fire," he whispered, "and when I'm with you, I feel like I don't need a Viper to fly."

TBC…


	32. The Next Morning

Chapter 32

The Morning After

Kara awoke in Lee bed the day after Zak funeral. Alone. Like she knew she would. She sat up and looked around the room. Her uniform was no longer on the floor. It had been carefully hung on the back of the closet door. Her shoes and socks and underwear were on the desk. His bag was gone just like she knew it would be.

Wrapping the sheet around her she got out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom. She turned on the shower, stepped into the spray before it had a chance to warm, while it was still cold and punishing.

When had she known last night what was going to happen with her and Lee? Had she known out on the patio when he'd taken her hand and led her to his room? Had she known when she told him not to turn on the light? Had she known what the moonlight would remind both of them of? Hadn't she always known that one day their feelings would lead them to this?

But why now, when the timing was so off? Why not four years ago before she met Zak? She should have gone back on the night of Karl's graduation party. She should have gone back when Lee called her. Forget the ex-girlfriend. She should have gone back and taken his face in her hands and kissed him like she had kissed him at the dance. She should have put it on the line that night and told him she had feelings for him. That would have settled it right then one way or the other. Things would have been really different if she'd had the guts to take the chance four years ago.

But she hadn't. And she couldn't change the past.

She'd tried to tell him last night. _It's always been about us. _But the timing was so wrong. Lee must hate her now, hate her for the way she seemed to forget about Zak when she was with him.

She put both hands against the back wall of the shower, felt the spray gradually warm on her shoulders. She finally stop shivering and her teeth stopped chattering.

Back in Lee's room, wrapped in a towel, she looked around. No phone. She knew there was a phone in the kitchen. She could call a transport. The book Lee had handed her last night was still in the window seat and she picked it up. _The Adventures of Starbuck and Apollo._ She liked Starbuck and Apollo a lot better than she liked Lee and Kara right now.

She took the book over to the bookcase, found the slot he had taken it from and returned it. Then on impulse she took out the last book of the series, flipped to the last printed page and read the words. _And they lived happily ever after._ A kid's book, a fairy-tale ending, nothing to do with real life.

The illustrator had added his own personal touch, however. On the opposite page were the two dogs, Starbuck and Apollo, lying contentedly side-by-side while three fluffy pups played in the grass. She felt tears sting her eyes. Damn. She shut the book quickly and put it back in the bookcase.

She pulled on her clothes in record time and went downstairs.

Henry, dressed in pajamas and bathrobe, was sitting at the table reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. He gestured for her to sit, which she did, and he fixed her a cup of coffee, just the way she liked it with a couple of spoonfuls of cream, no sugar.

She sat with him and sipped the drink in silence.

"He's gone, you know." Henry finally said.

Kara nodded. She was numb again.

"About two hours ago, just before dawn. He asked me to tell his mother he would call her after he got back to the _Atlantia_. And he asked me to make sure you got to your apartment or the base or wherever you wanted to go."

"I can call a transport," she said, but made no move to do it.

She glanced up and realized that Henry was studying her. "How long?" He asked.

"How long what?"

"You and Lee."

She didn't really care anymore. "Not until last night. I mean we've known each other since the Academy, but we didn't…not until last night."

"Kara, I wasn't asking the specifics of your physical relationship. How long have the two of you had feelings for each other?"

"Why do you think Lee and I have feelings for each other? Just because we…that doesn't mean…I'd been drinking...it was just..." She stopped, realizing how absurd she sounded.

"Oh, Kara. I may be older but I'm not blind. I knew the night of Carolanne's birthday dinner that something was going on with you two. You wouldn't look at him and he couldn't stop looking at you. There was so much _not_ being said that I'd be surprised if I were the only one who picked up on it. And when you did finally speak to him, the rest of us might as well have not been there. I've also never seen Lee try to drown himself in alcohol like that. Not to mention the fact that the two of you disappeared for about ten minutes while Carolanne and I sat at the table trying to make small talk. And poor Zak…"

"I really did go after him to give him hell about what a jerk he was being to his family. Then we started having it out on some other issues. That's where we were when Zak walked in."

"Why did you ever start dating Zak when you obviously still had feelings for Lee?"

Kara shook her head. "I thought I was over it. Over him. It had been four years since I'd heard from Lee. And Zak was good to me, good for me. I wish Lee had never come back."

"You would have had to face him at some point, you know. You couldn't be with Zak and avoid Lee forever."

Kara attempted to smile. "Right. I would have had to deal with Lee sooner or later. I knew that. It would have been so much better for me if it had been later."

"Do you really think later would have made that much of a difference with the kind of unresolved feelings you two obviously have for each other? Do you really think another month or two or six would have mattered?"

"Probably not."

"Kara, please understand I'm not being judgmental. I'm concerned about you. That's all."

"I just wish I could have seen his face this morning. I think if I could have seen his face I would have been able to figure out what last night meant to him. I could have seen if he hates me or if there's a chance he'll ever forgive me. I'd settle for that. If he would just forgive me."

"Considering the circumstances, it may be some time before either of you get the opportunity to see or talk to each other unless you make it happen."

Suddenly she blinked back tears. "He didn't even say goodbye. He didn't even leave me a frakking note. _Thanks. Enjoyed it…_"

"He couldn't," Henry said. "I don't know if that tells you anything or not. Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to defend his actions, but he was barely holding it together."

"Like me?"

"You seem to be doing better than Lee."

"Did you talk to him?"

"I didn't get a chance. He couldn't stay that long. By the time I got into the kitchen he had already called a transport."

Kara nodded.

"Are you sorry that it happened?"

She sat for a long time and finally said, "I don't know. I really don't know. I've had feelings for Lee for a long time. Last night will either kill them or make them stronger. I guess I won't know until it happens."

"It might be a good idea if you talked to someone."

"You mean like a shrink?"

"Or a priestess or a counselor. I'm sure that service is available to you. But much more importantly you and Lee should talk to each other, Kara, really talk. I can't say that enough. This will never be resolved for either of you otherwise. You both owe each other that much if nothing else."

"If Lee had anything to say to me, he wouldn't have left like he did."

"Still, for your own peace of mind..."

"Thanks Henry, but I'll be all right. I can take care of myself. I've been doing it for a long time."

"I've never doubted that, Kara. I'm just saying…"

Kara smiled, "Henry, why would I need an shrink when I've got you?"

TBC…


	33. Aftermath

Chapter 33

Aftermath

"Viper Four-Five-Zero, approach starboard landing bay, speed one-three-zero, checkers red, call the ball." A long couple of moments of static and again, "Viper Four-Five-Zero, acknowledge, please."

Lee snapped back from wherever his thoughts had just been. Kara or Zak or Kara and Zak or Kara and himself. That was where his thoughts were most of the time lately.

"This is Viper Four-Five-Zero, copy that. I have the ball." Damn, he'd forgotten that this exercise was a hands-on approach. Just like last week he'd come in too hot for the auto-landing computers to pick him up. That had been fun. The wave-off and re-approach. In his entire career he'd never missed a landing like that.

Suddenly the crackle of static and the voice of the LSO in his ear, still calm, yet with an edge that hadn't been there before, "Viper Four-Five-Zero, your skids are still up, repeat, your skids are up." At the same moment a warning sounded in the cockpit.

Frakking hell, he nudged the belly thrusters, held the viper in the air long enough to get the skids down and the mag-locks secured. Frakking hell, he'd just about put his viper down on its fuselage. _Get a grip, Lee_.

After that, the call to the CAG's office was no surprise. On his desk were the reports. Lee knew no one wanted to get him in trouble, but when a pilot started losing it out there, when he was a hair away from screwing the pooch big time, everyone got concerned.

The CAG thumbed through the four or five pages on his desk. "What's going on, Lieutenant? Coming in hot, forgetting to put down skids. Reporting for duty late. Failing to complete two post-flight checklists. None of this sounds like you."

"I know, sir. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

The CAG looked up at the ceiling in the corner of the room and then back at Lee. "Were you and your brother close?"

Lee nodded. "We were. Yes, sir, we were very close."

"His loss must be really hard on you."

"Yes, sir, but I'm fine, sir."

"I've got to question that right now, Lieutenant. I have a squadron of pilots whose safety is my responsibility. When one starts missing basic stuff like this, I've got to be concerned."

"Yes, sir. But I'm fine. Really, I am, sir."

"Tell you what, Lee. I don't want to put any of this on your record." He picked up the pages, tore them in half and threw them in the trashcan. "And I don't want to pull you from flight ready status because that will go on your record, too. You're a damned fine pilot. One of the best I've ever seen. I'm sure this is temporary."

Lee felt a knot forming in the pit of his stomach. "No, sir, I don't want to be taken off flight ready status."

"I want you to take a few days off. No, take a whole week. You didn't take all of the time you had coming for bereavement leave. I want you to take it now. Go back to Caprica. Go to Picon and lay on a beach. Go somewhere and give yourself a chance to work through your problems. If you'd like to talk things over with a counselor or a priest, I can arrange that, too. Then come back and we'll forget any of this happened."

"With respect, sir, I don't need time off. I don't need to talk to anyone. I'll get it together."

"Right now I've made a request. Do I have to make it an order? An official order will go on your record."

"No, sir."

"Good. I'll see you in a week. This is going in your record as compassionate leave due to a death in the family."

"Sir…"

"That's all, Lieutenant."

As Lee turned to leave, the CAG said, "There's a supply ship heading back to Caprica in about an hour. I've already notified the captain he'll have a passenger."

...

His mother was glad to see him, although when he walked into the kitchen, she threw her arms around his neck and burst into tears. Twice in the two weeks he'd been back on the _Atlantia_, he'd stood in line half an hour to get a few minutes on the comm-link so he could talk to her. Now he hugged her tightly until her tears stopped.

He knew he shouldn't have left the way he did the morning after Zak's funeral, but he also knew he couldn't stay and face Kara. Not after what they had done. Even now when he thought about it, it was with a strange mixture of love, desire, and terrible guilt. Did he have any idea what was going to happen when he took her up to his room? Hadn't that always been in the back of his mind when he thought about Kara? Where the frak did they go from here?

That evening at dinner, he sat with his mother and Henry while Henry carried the lion's share of the conversation. Talking on about a new exhibit at the museum, a lecture series they were planning. Just talking, thank the gods, so Lee didn't have to.

After the meal, after Lee had cleared the table and helped Henry put the dishes in the dishwasher, they walked outside so Henry could smoke his pipe. His mother retreated to the den.

"I've been staying over," Henry said. "I didn't want her to be alone. Now that you're here, if it bothers you, I'll go back home."

"No, no, of course not," Lee said. "I was thinking about going out for a little while anyway."

"That would be good for you. Go see some friends."

"I don't know how many friends I have left on Caprica."

"Oh, I'm sure there are a few who haven't scattered to the stars."

Lee thought about Kara as he had a hundred times already that day.

"The day after the funeral, did you…did you get Kara back to her apartment okay?"

"She didn't want me to leave your mother. She called a transport. I insisted on paying for it, though."

"How was she?"

"Lee, I know what happened with you and Kara."

"Kara told you?" Lee asked in disbelief.

"Oh, Lee, she didn't have to. I'll tell you like I told her. I may not be a young man, but I'm not a blind man. First you rabbit before dawn without saying goodbye to your mother. You leave Kara behind in _your_ bed, and then Kara…well Kara's emotions were on her face. She tried, but she wasn't able to hide anything."

Lee looked up and drew in a deep breath. He let it out. "You must think me the worst kind of bastard."

"I'll tell you like I told Kara, I'm not a person who judges others. It's not on my conscience, Lee. I'm not the one who will have to come to terms with it. Zak wasn't my brother."

"Does my mother know?"

"Gods, no. And you can rest assured she'll never hear it from me."

"I love Kara," Lee said. "I loved her long before she knew Zak and was too stupid to do anything about it. And now I've frakked it up forever. I'm sure she hates me now. I took advantage of her vulnerability…I…frak, I can't believe I…she was just trying to comfort me and I…took advantage…and once we got started…I even made her tell me…frak, I can't believe what I did."

Henry was silent for a few moments. "Are you saying that you forced her?"

Lee almost laughed. "Henry, nobody forces Kara to do anything."

"I didn't think so. She didn't make any attempt to stop you, did she?"

"No."

"Then you can't take all the blame. Kara's a remarkable young woman. She's overcome a great deal. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to give up. You need to talk to her, Lee. I told her the same thing…that she needs to talk to you. You both need to talk. Nothing will be resolved if you both stay silent."

"It's been two weeks. Kara knows how to get in touch with me. If she had anything to say to me she would have done it."

"Maybe she's waiting on you. She wasn't the one who left before dawn that day."

"Yeah, that was a cowardly thing to do. I was afraid to face her, scared to death of what I'd see in her eyes when she looked at me. I just couldn't…frak, I've never been good at…I didn't have a clue what to say to her."

"You could start by telling her what you've just told me."

"I'll think about it."

"Are you sorry it happened?"

"Yes…no…gods, I don't know. I've dreamed about her so many times since we left the Academy. I never thought…and then she winds up with Zak and I was kicking myself for letting her go…and crazy jealous of Zak…and then Zak died and Kara was there in my room…and I just…frak…I was so…I couldn't believe she was there in my arms…I wanted her so much…and it seemed so right at the time. I know now how stupid I was. How bad I've frakked up. I'd like to just…I wish we could just start over again, her terms, however she wants it. If she'll even have me as a friend at all now. Would you tell her that for me?"

"No, Lee, I won't. I'm not trying to be cruel or unfeeling, but you're the one who needs to talk to Kara. I won't be a messenger for either of you. Kara needs to hear anything you've got to say from you. It won't mean anything coming from me."

"You're right. Look, I'm going out for a little while," Lee finally said. "Thank you for taking care of my mother."

"I love her," Henry said, echoing Lee's confession. "I want to ask her to marry me, but I'm afraid she'll say _no_."

"Maybe I should talk to her."

"It won't do any good. You see, I think a part of her still loves your dad. She won't marry me until she can let go of that."

"After what happened to Zak, I think she'll be able to let go. Dad put Zak in that Viper where he had no business and it killed him. I don't think she'll ever be able to forgive him for what he did. Just hang in there a little longer, Henry."

Henry smiled. "Thank you, Lee, for giving me hope. And you shouldn't give up hope, either."

Lee drove over toward the Academy and pulled into the parking lot at McGee's. He went in and went to the bar. It looked just the same, just exactly the same. But everyone in it was different. The cadets looked so young. He ordered a beer, but found he couldn't sit there long enough to drink it. He took it with him out to the car and finished it sitting in the parking lot.

_Frak, where had the time gone?_

He went home.

Everyone from his Academy days had scattered to the stars.

TBC…


	34. Leaving Caprica

Chapter 34

Leaving Caprica

The Sergeant on the supply ship_ Russell Berkeley _came to attention as Kara handed her orders to him. He was short and a little on the round side and had the unlit stub of a cigar clamped in his teeth.

He looked over the papers and took the cigar out of his mouth. "Hitching a ride to the _Galactica, _sir? You know there's a regular personnel transport early next week."

"I didn't want to wait that long."

He pointed the cigar stub toward the other side of the ship. "You'll want to take a jump seat on that side of the cargo hold. They're better over there. And," he indicated her carryon bag, "you'll have to stow that in the locker next to the seats. AG has been acting up lately and we're not scheduled for repairs for a couple of weeks. You'll also need to stay strapped in your seat the entire trip just in case."

"Wait a minute. You're saying your Artificial Gravity is down?"

"Not down, just flakey. Once we're out of the planet's gravitational field, one minute you're standing on the deck and the next you're floating."

Kara grinned, "Sounds like fun."

"Ain't fun when you're twenty-eight feet up in the air and it kicks in again."

Kara nodded. "Right, I get your point. So I'll stay strapped in. Hey, why don't you just shut it off completely?"

She got an eye roll. "This is an old ship. It's tied in with some other systems that can't be shut off. Sorry, Lieutenant, you'll just have to put up with it. Sure you don't want to wait on that transport next week?"

Kara shook her head. "I can deal with weightless for a couple of hours if I have to."

Forty-five minutes later they had cleared Caprica's atmosphere and as the gravitational pull of the planet lessened she felt her body rise slightly against the mesh harness across her. The AG must not be working. The Sergeant had already started to doze.

Kara put her head back and closed her eyes. She could have waited until the following Monday and taken a regular personnel transport to the _Galactica_, but she didn't want to wait that long. She had said her goodbyes to everyone who mattered to her already, and she just wanted to be gone from Caprica.

Being back on a battlestar was going to be different and a challenge for her. She hoped she hadn't made a mistake. She hoped that serving under Commander Adama wouldn't cause either one of them grief because like it or not, the bond they shared was Zak, and Zak was gone. Then again, how often did a Viper pilot even see the commander of the battlestar? And she was going to be with Karl Agathon again. Her best friend, someone she had missed a great deal, someone who understood her, someone who knew her secrets.

But there was one secret she would never be able to share with Karl and that was Lee, what he meant to her and what they had done the night of Zak's funeral. That secret was hers and hers alone.

Kara remembered her posting to the _Triton._ How she'd fallen into some bad habits, the drinking, the card playing, and worst of all, the arrogance that had crept in as she realized she was a far better Viper pilot than anybody else on board.

But all of that would have been overlooked if she hadn't gotten into it with another Viper pilot. And not just _any_ Viper pilot. About ten months into her assignment on the _Triton_ they got a transfer from the _Solaria_. Rumor had it that this was his fourth transfer in three years and Kara knew that meant either or both of two things. The guy was the son or brother or nephew of someone very important in the fleet or the government or he was an asshole. Commanders kept transferring him so they wouldn't have to deal with him.

It took her three hours to confirm his connection. He was the son of the Colonial Governor of Tauron. It took her fifteen seconds to confirm he was an asshole. Lieutenant Ivan Brindle, call sign Horse, had the same swagger and attitude as her former drill instructor Captain Reider.

On his second day aboard, he was waiting in the hangar bay when she brought her Viper in from a routine patrol.

"I hear you're the _Triton's_ resident hot shot," he said by way of greeting her.

Kara was busy with her post-flight checklist and ignored him until she finished.

Finally she handed the clipboard to one of the deck crew. "Sorry, I didn't catch that comment, Lieutenant. Welcome to the _Triton_ by the way. We've got a good crew here. Good pilots, good deck crew, good officers. Everybody works together _as a team_."

"Everybody except you. I hear you're not much of a team player."

"Don't believe everything you hear," Kara said and started to walk off.

"Hey, Starbuck," he said. "Just letting you know you're going to have to settle for second best for a while."

Mind games. This jerk was playing frakking mind games with her. "Right," she said and looked him up and down. _What an asshole._

"Like what you see?"

"Nope. Just trying to figure out how an ego that big fits into a Viper cockpit."

"You ought to know."

Kara laughed and kept on walking. _What an_ a_sshole._

Several days after that she was in the hangar bay and heard two female Raptor pilots talking. The pretty brunette whose call sign was Hopscotch was telling her friend Jigsaw that Lieutenant Brindle had offered to show her how he got his call sign.

"Ugh," she said and made a sound like she was gagging. "He said he was called _Horse_ because he was the best ride in _and_ out of the cockpit."

Jigsaw, also a brunette but not nearly as attractive as Hopscotch, shook her head, "I heard it was because he was captain of the equestrian team at the Academy on Picon. He won a bunch of medals for them in competitions."

"What difference does it make? He's a jerk." The derision in Hopscotch's voice was clear.

"Oh, I don't know. I think he's good looking. In fact, I think he's hot."

"Well, why don't you just saddle up? I'll try to find you some spurs and a riding crop." Hopscotch's tone had changed and was edged with sarcasm, maybe something else. Hurt?

Jigsaw started giggling as Kara walked away. Gods, there was no accounting for taste. Besides, she didn't think anything would ever come of it because she had always thought that Jigsaw and Hopscotch were more into each other than they were into guys.

Less than a week later, though, on her first day off-duty since Brindle came on board, she slept in about an hour and got to the showers after almost everybody else was gone. Ricochet, a nice-looking Viper pilot, stood shaving at one of the sinks.

They greeted each other with nods as she walked in and headed toward the showers around the corner on the right side of the room. Kara looked at his towel-wrapped ass as she walked past. It never hurt to look when it was that nice.

"Uh, Starbuck, you might want to use the other showers," he pointed his razor toward the left side of the room.

"Are these broke?"

"Nope. Horse and Jigsaw are having their own private little rodeo back there. Yee-ha." He grinned at her, tilted his head and looked cross-eyed.

"Right, thanks." She couldn't handle _that_ this soon after getting up. But it proved she had been wrong about one thing. If Jigsaw was frakking Horse back there in the shower, then Jigsaw was definitely into guys.

She mostly tried to ignore Brindle's bragging and the way he was always trying to push her buttons. Gods, in his own way he got her hackles up as much as Reider had, but luckily Brindle had no authority over her. And Brindle knew better than to come on to her in a sexual way. She was sure he valued those organs that made him a male too much. No, he just settled for giving her grief about her flying and she could handle that all day long. She was so damned much better in a Viper than he was. And they both knew it.

Kara was concentrating right now on helping Lieutenant Ryan Ridley, call sign Tripper. A month out of Flight School and a bit of a klutz, he had good technical skills, but he lacked confidence. Kara felt that all it would take was some mentoring and experience and he would blossom. Without making a big deal of it, she began to watch him and make suggestions. She started feeling good about what she was doing. The rookie was getting better every time he went out.

She wasn't sure why she had taken Tripper under her wing. Maybe it was because he reminded her of Karl when she first got to know him, before he grew a couple of feet taller. Or maybe it was because Tripper didn't have that arrogance yet of most of the Viper pilots she knew. There wasn't anything romantic in her feelings or even sexual. She just wanted this quiet, likable kid to have a chance at becoming the pilot she knew he could be. And Tripper was making real progress.

Until the obstacle course and Brindle's stupid frakking challenge.

Once a year each battlestar got a chance for its pilots to run the obstacle course above Gemenon's smallest moon. The buoys that they pitted their skills against floated about ten thousand feet above the surface of the moon, held there by some amazing anti-gravity technology.

Twenty-eight buoys in all were deployed based on a computer program running in a station housed on the moon's surface. Signals sent from the battlestar to the surface computer changed the buoys according to the kind of craft flying the course. Vipers had the most configurations, about thirty different settings. The point was to get from start to finish, passing each buoy on the right, left, top, or bottom depending on which way the LED arrows were pointing. And to do it as fast as possible...all without hitting a buoy. Hits automatically added seconds to the score.

The course was to measure and to teach skills in maneuverability and quick decision-making. Not combat skills, but the basis of combat skills. Though what they would ever need combat skills for was debatable. Forty years of peace had elapsed since anyone had even heard from a Cylon. Still she understood why they had to be prepared.

In the squadron ready room on the morning before their first run, the CAG wrote the numbers 5.26 and 7.34 on the board. "The times to beat," he said. Captain Carlo's best Viper time from last year and Lieutenant Dover's Raptor time. Carlo grinned and gave everyone a thumb's up to the catcalls of his fellow Viper pilots as they ribbed him.

Three days later, when they had all completed the obstacle course, the CAG wrote again. This time the numbers were 4.49 and 7.21.

"No frakking way somebody broke five minutes," one of the pilots said. "Way to go Carlo," another one said.

The CAG looked out over the group. "Lieutenant Dover continues to improve his Raptor time, but we've got a new Viper record," he said, "and a new Viper record holder. Lieutenant Kara Thrace."

Kara had known her time was good, but not that good. The catcalls poured in, the loudest from Carlo, and she raised her fist, thumb extended. Hell, yes, they might as well start getting used to it. She glanced over at Tripper and saw the pride in his eyes. Past him she saw Horse glaring at her.

Tripper's times had been slower than they should have been, and the CAG asked her to watch him and see if she could spot a problem. That's what they had been getting ready to do the next day when Horse made his challenge to race through the course. It had been made to her, but Tripper misunderstood and thought it was to him.

"You're on," he said suddenly and was off.

"Tripper, stop, no. Horse, don't be an idiot."

Her words fell on deaf ears. Kara could do nothing but follow them. This was going to end badly. She knew it.

It did. Tripper hit the sixth buoy. The buoys were made of a resilient material and weren't heavy enough to cause damage to a ship, but Tripper overcorrected and come within a few feet of hitting Horse's Viper. He overcorrected again, was unable to straighten up and was quickly spinning out of control. Kara saw first one engine and then the others flame out as he started a flat spin down toward the surface of the moon.

Where Horse went after that she didn't know, probably high-tailed it back to the _Triton_, but she pointed her Viper down and followed Tripper, talking to him the whole way.

"You've got to go through engine restart, Tripper, listen to me. Are you listening?"

Kara heard his panicked voice, "Computer's not starting the engines, computer's not starting the engines, computer's not..."

"We're going to do it manually Tripper, listen to me, do exactly as I say."

All she could do was try to step him through the restart and hope he heard her, hope he could follow her instructions, hope he wasn't getting sick as he spun dizzily toward the surface of the moon."

"Eject," she heard him say once.

"No, you can do this, we've got time. Do not eject." And she started the steps again.

Finally less than two thousand feet from the surface, maybe twenty seconds from impact, five seconds before she would have told him to eject, she saw the engines flare to life one after the other. "You did it," she shouted, unable to keep the emotion out of her voice, "You did it, Tripper, you did it. Now pull back on the stick, get your nose up."

He did. Gods, she didn't know how managed as dizzy as he must have been by then, but she saw the nose of his Viper come up and the ship level out.

She flew up beside him. "Great job. Come on Tripper, we're going home. We've had enough fun for today." He gave her a weak thumb's up.

Understandably he had some difficulty with his landing, but she followed him into the landing bay despite the LSO's orders to waive off. She saw Tripper safely down before she made a loop and put her own ship down.

She was out of her Viper the minute the ladder was put up. Pushing past the crewman with the post-flight checklist, she ran to Tripper's Viper. One of the crew was at the top of the ladder. Tripper was still sitting in the cockpit.

The crewman looked down at her. "He won't get out, sir."

She motioned to the crewman to come down the ladder and she went up. "Hey, Trip, that was some damned fancy flying you just did. Damned fancy. I couldn't have done it better myself."

He looked up at her with a pained expression on his face and said something too softly for her to hear over the noise of the hangar bay. "What's that?" She leaned down.

"I pissed my flight suit." She saw tears in his eyes.

She leaned nearer. "Hey, Tripper, all of us have pissed our flight suits at one time or another." _Yeah, just because she hadn't done it yet didn't mean she wouldn't some day._ "Come on down. After what you just went through, a little pee in a flight suit is to be expected. Come on. Give me your helmet."

He did and she tossed it down to a crewman. By now several more had gathered around the Viper. They knew something had happened out there.

Kara steadied him as he got out. His hand was as cold as ice.

Tripper made it almost down the ladder before he said, "I don't feel so good," and sat down on the next to the bottom step. He was shaking and his face was chalky white and Kara finally realized that he was probably going into shock.

She turned to one of the crew. "Get the medics down here on the double. He needs to go to Sick Bay." When the guy hesitated, she barked, "Now. And get me a blanket."

She squatted down beside him. "Come on, Tripper, hang in there."

A young female crewmember brought her a blanket and she draped it around his shoulders. "Come on, Tripper. Look at me. Talk to me. We got help coming."

He shook his head slightly. His eyes were glassy but he managed to focus on her, and then his gaze shifted from her to someone behind her.

"Well, well, well," she heard Brindle drawl. "Tripper, boy, it looks like we're going to have to put some training wheels on your Viper."

Kara came up from squatting beside Tripper, her right hand in a tight fist, and with all the force of her rise and turn behind the blow, she hit Lieutenant Brindle in the jaw. He never uttered a sound, just went down and lay on the deck without moving.

For about thirty seconds the pain in her hand was so intense that she thought she was going to throw up. The medics arrived a minute later and by then, somebody had called the CAG and even the XO, and all she would tell them was to take care of Tripper.

She was escorted to the brig about five minutes after that.

It took six hours for them to review the digital images from the buoys, listen to all three cockpit voice recorders and talk to Tripper. During the first hour she lay on a bunk in the brig with a wet towel wrapped around her throbbing hand. She asked the MP on duty for some ice, and she said she'd see what she could do, but Kara never heard her make a call. After another hour she was at least able to move all of her fingers and open and close her fist slightly. Thank the gods. She didn't think anything was broken. It still hurt like hell, though. But it was so damned worth it.

She had given up on the ice when she was aware that someone was outside of her cell. Hopscotch stood there with a plastic bag full of crushed ice. Without speaking she extended her arm through the bars.

Kara got up, went over and took the bag with her left hand. "Thanks."

She saw a ghost of a smile on Hopscotch's lips. "You broke his jaw in two places. Sucker is wired shut for a while. Guess who won't be running his mouth for a while...or doing anything else with it. And Tripper's okay. Doc's keeping him in Sick Bay overnight, but he's fine." She turned to go and then turned back around. "Good luck."

"Right. Thanks again."

Kara knew there would be consequences. There were. A reprimand in her record. And a commendation. And a new assignment. Flight Instructor at the Air Base on Caprica.

...

"Lieutenant. Lieutenant, sir." The Sergeant's voice. "We're on final approach to the _Galactica_."

Kara opened her eyes. The weightless feeling was gone. Fifteen minutes later she exited the _Russell Berkeley_ into the battlestar's cargo hold. In some ways she felt like she was coming home.

TBC…


	35. Pilot Error

Chapter 35

Pilot Error

The morning after his brief trip to McGee's, Lee went to the park and jogged for several miles tnen came back to the house and did sit-ups and push-ups until his muscles burned. He took a shower, helped his mother fix lunch, and sat and talked to her. Finally she went to her room to take a nap, and Lee walked out into the back yard.

The rope swing moved gently in the breeze. His father had put up that swing for him and Zak when he was only six or seven. Lee went over to it and gingerly tested it before he put all of his weight on it. Despite the weathering of twenty years, it held. He grasped the ropes, leaned back and shut his eyes. He let the swing move slowly with him. Sunlight, dappled by the leaves overhead, moved across his face. A memory surfaced.

Dancing lessons when he was fifteen, the sixteen-year-old blond he'd been partnered with, losing his virginity to her at her family's lake house a few weeks after their first class. The lounge chair on the deck because she'd forgotten the key, leaning back and shutting his eyes as she straddled him, the dappling late afternoon sunlight on his face. He hadn't been her first, but that hadn't mattered to him. He tried to remember what she looked like, the girl who had taken his virginity, but he kept seeing Kara's face.

Lee went into the house and left a note for his mother who was still napping. She had already told him to take her car if he wanted to go out.

He drove out to the air base. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, he had his military ID and it got him onto the base. He asked the MP at the gate where the pilots trained, and was directed to a small building near the airfield. Parking in a visitor spot, he got out and went in. Someone in the hall directed him to an office near the end.

The door was standing open, and a dark-skinned man was sitting at one of the desks going over some papers. Lee tapped on the door and the man looked up. He looked vaguely familiar and Lee realized that he had seen him at Zak's funeral.

"Yes?"

Lee looked at the desk nameplate. "Captain Valinski. I'm Lee Adama."

"Oh, yes, come in, please. Sorry, I didn't recognize you out of uniform." Valinski got up and they shook hands. "I'm really sorry about Zak. He was a fine young man."

"Yes, he was."

The other desk in the room was bare except for a desktop calendar, a pencil holder, and three empty picture frames.

"Lieutenant Thrace?" Lee gestured.

"Gone," Valinski answered. "First of the week. She's on the _Galactica_ by now. I hated to see her go. She's a good instructor. And the best Viper pilot I've ever seen. But I understand it. Besides losing a student, she's lost her confidence and that's not good for someone who's responsible for others. She'll get it back, though. I give her just a couple of years before she'll be teaching again."

Lee gestured to the empty picture frames on Kara's desk. "Looks like she left something behind."

"She took the pictures. Said she wouldn't have room for the frames." He chuckled and pointed to the dozen or more pictures on his side of the room. "She said she would donate them to my growing collection."

Lee said. "Pilot's quarters are pretty spare on a battlestar. What were they? The pictures?"

"Her graduation from the Academy I think, and getting her wings, and the bigger one was her and Zak and you, on the ball field."

Lee knew the picture. His mother had given one to him as well. It had been only a few months since that ball game and yet it seemed like an eternity.

"Were you there when…it happened?" Lee asked.

"Not on the field, no. I was in the classroom that afternoon. I didn't know there was a problem until I heard the sirens."

"Do you know what happened?"

"Lieutenant Thrace didn't tell you?"

"No, I didn't ask her. We didn't talk about it at all."

"I can understand. It happened when he was landing. I heard he came in too hot and too high and overshot the landing zone. It's not uncommon for a rookie. The tower told him to go around again, but we're not sure he heard. It looks like he tried to set down anyway and was out of runway before he got on the ground. There was no reply from him to the tower waving him off so there may have been some problem with his com device. And if the com was down, there may also have been other instrument problems."

Lee realized Valinski was making excuses. Even a nugget, a rookie, even without the tower shouldn't make a mistake like that during the daylight. When his CAG had said _training accident_, Lee had imagined something catastrophic like engine failure. How could Zak have missed the landing zone? Anybody who had passed basic flight should be able to set a Viper down on a runway during the day without any help from the tower.

The captain went on. "The fire trucks were rolling before the Viper had stopped tumbling, but…" He looked away for a few moments. "I heard that it took two firemen to hold Lieutenant Thrace. She was going into the…wreckage to get him. I can assure you they did everything they possibly could to save him."

"I wasn't questioning anyone's efforts. I'm sure everything possible was done…so you're saying this is going down as pilot error?"

Captain Valinski looked uncomfortable. "I haven't seen the final report. It won't be ready for weeks, yet, maybe a month or more. What I've told you is strictly off the record. It's just what I heard. I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have said anything."

"No, I appreciate your candor." He shook Valinski's hand again. "I hope you get another instructor soon."

Valinski nodded. "I got one coming in the first of next week from Picon. I'll be happy if he's half as good as Lieutenant Thrace."

Lee had an answer now, to something that had plagued him since the accident. And further confirmation that Zak didn't belong in a Viper. The report would come back _Pilot Error_ and he had his father to blame for it.

...

He seemed to be on a roll. Where to now? He started his car, left the base, and at the next intersection found he had turned toward the Academy. He was going backwards in time, back to the beginning, back to the place he and Kara had met.

He parked in the visitor lot behind the Admin building and walked around it to the quad. It looked exactly the same. To his right was the cafeteria, across the quad was the science building. In the basement of the science building were the simulators. In a way that's where it had all started.

He slipped into the amphitheater and took a seat. A cadet was flying the third and toughest sim, struggling through the sim was more like it. What would he give to have been here the day Kara went through them all? He sat there for half an hour in the cool dark until the student's time was up. Another five minutes and the student left. Lee went down to the simulator.

"Colonel Burgher, sir. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Lee Adama." Lee extended his hand.

Conrad Burgher took it. "Of course. I remember all of my good students. I'm very sorry about your brother."

"Thank you, sir."

"What brings you back here?"

"I'm back on Caprica for a couple of days to see my mother. A little R&R. I wanted to stop by the Academy and say hello to a few friends."

"Where are you stationed now?"

"On the _Atlantia_."

"Ah, the fleet's newest and best battlestar. Flying a Viper?"

"Flying a Viper, yes, sir."

"Mark VII?"

"Yes, sir. A fine machine. Colonel, I wonder if I could ask you something about Zak?"

"Ask. I can't guarantee I'll answer."

"Do you think Zak had what it takes to be a pilot?"

Burgher frowned. "Where are you going with this, Lee?"

"When we were growing up, Zak never showed any interest in flying. He was going to be an archeologist. Then suddenly he transferred his acceptance at Caprica U to here. I think my father was responsible, but I might be wrong. Maybe Zak really wanted it. I'm just trying to understand how Zak ended up…I'm not really sure where I'm going with this."

"Zak wasn't my best student, but he certainly wasn't my worst. Not by a long shot. He struggled some with the sims, but that's not necessarily a bad sign. There's no predicting absolutely who will make a good pilot and who won't. There are indicators, of course, but they aren't always right."

"What was your take on Zak then? Hypothetically, of course?"

Burgher looked away for a moment. "Had I been guiding his career, I would not have put him in a Viper. Of course the person who would know best would be his flight instructor, Lieutenant Thrace."

"I couldn't talk to her. She and Zak…had a relationship."

Burgher frowned again "I wondered. She and I had lunch a few days before the accident. She hinted that she would soon have something to tell me. Something of a personal nature."

"They were engaged."

"I'm so very sorry…for both of them. I guess that's part of what sent her running back to the stars. Kara came by to see me early this week and told me that she was on her way to the _Galactica_."

"My father arranged it. Getting her on the _Galactica _so fast. Well, I've got to shove off. It's good to see you again, sir." Lee extended his hand and Burgher shook it.

The colonel cleared his throat. "Give my regards to Lieutenant Thrace the next time you see her. Tell her…I wish her the best. She…I will miss her."

"You can count on it, sir…the next time I talk to her. I really hope I can figure out a way to do that soon."

TBC…


	36. Drinking with the Major

Chapter 36

Drinking with the Major

Lee went back out to the quad and sat for several minutes on the bench he and Kara had sat on the morning he had gotten her out of the brig. He knew where he was going next.

Major Connelly's office in the History and Language Arts building was in the same spot it had been when Lee was a cadet. On the second floor, second door from the end. There was a sign taped inside the door's glass informing students of his office hours. There were none this afternoon. Lee turned to go and saw Connelly coming down the hall.

"Adama," Connelly said. "This is a surprise. First Kara early in the week and now you. I expected Kara. I sure didn't expect you." He unlocked the office door and gestured to Lee. "Come on in. I'm really sorry about Zak. He was a good kid. I taught him Colonial History his first year just like I did you. He didn't ace the final like you did, but he did okay. He worked hard."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're in civvies. Drop the _sir_. So what brings you here?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure. I've been wandering today. I just went by to see Colonel Burgher."

"Poor Conrad. He's really broken up over Kara leaving. You know he's got three sons and a couple of grandsons. Kara's daughter and granddaughter rolled into one for him. He's going to miss her."

"And you?" Lee asked quietly, "Are you going to miss her, too?"

Connelly looked at him for a long time, and said just as quietly. "Yes, I'm going to miss her, too. That year she was on the _Triton_ was a long one."

"I saw you at the funeral. You and Colonel Burgher. Thank you for coming. That was nice. We appreciated it. I know Kara did, too."

Connelly nodded. "Sure." He put a stack of papers on his desk. "I was going to look at these for an hour or so before I headed home, but I've got a better idea. Let's go have a drink. You can talk. I'll listen. Or I can talk and you'll listen."

"Not McGee's," Lee said.

"No," Connelly said and smiled tightly. "I wasn't going to suggest McGee's."

Lee's car was closest and he drove them to a small bar and restaurant in the city that Connelly suggested. Once inside, Connelly led the way to a booth near the bar and ordered a straight whiskey. Lee ordered the same.

While they waited for their drinks to arrive, Connelly asked. "How's your mother doing?"

Lee shrugged. "As well as can be expected. Zak was her baby. Her favorite. She'd never admit it, but he was. Dad's, too."

"Kara really likes your mother. And your dad? How is he?"

"Don't know. Don't really care."

Connelly didn't seem surprised. "And you, Adama, how are you doing?"

Lee shrugged again.

"I thought you'd be back on the _Atlantia_ by now."

"I was. Got sent home for a few days."

Connelly gave him a questioning look.

Their drinks arrived. Lee turned up the glass and drank half of the whiskey before he put it down. "CAG thought I needed a few days off. Missed a landing, made a couple more stupid mistakes. Guess he didn't want another Adama screwing the pooch."

"Screwing the pooch. Now that's a term I haven't heard in a long time."

"It means…" Lee started.

"I know what it means. Pilot makes a fatal or near-fatal error. So, I guess that answers my question about how you're doing. Maybe right now is not the best time for you to be in the cockpit. I'm sure losing a brother can mess with your mind big time. A couple of days away will do you good."

"A week should do me better, then," Lee mused. "That's how long the CAG thought I needed."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

Lee almost laughed. "That's one of the things I'm really good at. I'd like to ask you something if you don't mind."

"Ask. Doesn't mean I'll answer."

"Did you ever spend any time with Kara and Zak or did she ever talk about Zak's ability as a pilot?"

"Basically _no_ to both questions. I ran into them at McGee's a couple of weeks ago, right before the accident. I stood at the table and talked to them a couple of minutes. Zak said he was on his way to the _Columbia,_ and I warned him not to play cards with my old roommate. That was pretty much it for seeing them together. I did try to talk to Kara about Zak when she told me she was dating him. I questioned her motives. It made her angry. End of discussion."

"Her motives?"

"I reminded her she once had a thing for the older brother. I asked her if she might have some ulterior motive dating the younger. By her reaction I hit close to the truth. We were having lunch. She told me to go frak myself, got up and walked out. I didn't hear from her again until she called me to play in the ball game."

"One time at the Academy she got mad at me and didn't speak to me for almost four months. Not that I didn't deserve it. I insulted her and never apologized. I've made a lot of mistakes with Kara."

Connelly turned up his whiskey, drained it, and motioned for another. He studied Lee for a long minute. "How long have you been in love with her?"

Lee looked down for a few moments, started to deny it, and then looked directly at Connelly. "Probably about as long as you have."

Connelly rubbed the back of his neck. "I love her, yeah, but I'm not in love with her. There is a difference. A few years ago it could have gone that way, but circumstances pushed us in another direction. We went toward friends instead because that's all we could do. You're the one who had the chance with Kara. Why the hell didn't you take it?"

"Because I thought you and Kara…I thought she was sleeping with you and I couldn't handle it." It took a lot for Lee to admit that to the major, but he felt better after he had said it.

"You know about Kara and me then? About the night I met her?"

Lee shifted his gaze to one of the neon beer signs over the bar. "Yeah. When that thing with Reider happened, I figured it out." He looked back at Connelly. "The only thing Kara was adamant about was keeping you out of it. I thought it was because you and she…" Lee looked away again, "….had something going on."

Now Connelly looked away. "My divorce had been final about three months. I'd been seeing a woman, now my wife, about two months." He looked back at Lee. "You know us history teachers don't live life at Mach 10 like you pilots. So when Conrad told me about a cadet who had smoked all three of his sims boom, boom, boom, and a female cadet at that, I just had to go meet Kara Thrace myself."

"I know. I was there the night you met her."

"You were, weren't you? I remember that now. I remember thinking she was just showing off with me to make you jealous. I thought you were her boyfriend."

"No, uh, while we were at the Academy…we did go to the dance together but we never… Not that I didn't think about it. It just didn't seem to work out."

"Look, just so you'll know. That one night was the only one I had with her. I wanted to see her again, but she wouldn't do it. My career and all that. By the time we could have…after she graduated, I was married again with a new baby."

Connelly finished his second drink. "A third or no? What the hell." He raised his hand for another. "Did you ever have a night with her, Adama?" He studied his empty glass. "Are we kindred souls, you and me? Is that the bond we share? A night with Kara Thrace?"

"What?"

"You and Kara, did you ever have a night together?"

"I don't want to…" he shook his head. It was none of Connelly's business. But he made the mistake of looking up. Maybe it was years of reading his students, but Connelly nailed his look dead on.

"Holy frak. The answer is _yes_, and it just happened, didn't it?"

"Major, I'm not going to talk about it."

"That's what's screwing with your head as bad as losing your brother. Sleeping with the woman he loved. That's what sent Kara running back out to the stars. I _knew_ there was something more involved than she was telling me. I just never would have dreamed…Damn, you ignore her for how many years and then frak her right after she lost Zak. What the hell kind of…"

Lee put his glass down hard on the table and stood up. "Screw you, Connelly. If you think I'm going to sit here and listen to you talk to me like that can forget it. You think what you did to her at the Academy was right? You think there was nothing wrong with breaking one of the Academy's strictest rules? You should have been court-martialed for what you did, you son of a bitch."

Connelly looked at the ceiling for a moment before he looked back down at Lee. "You know something, Adama, if I were a different kind of man, you and I would be trading blows for that remark. And then somebody would call the cops or the MPs seeing as how I'm in uniform, and we'd both be in a hell of a lot of trouble. So just sit the frak back down before you do something stupid. Or make me."

Lee suddenly realized the absurdity of the whole situation and sat down. Wasn't he about ready to do the same thing Kara had done with Captain Reider? Strike a superior officer? The same thing he'd chewed her out for? The same lack of discipline and control. He almost laughed.

"And I'm sorry, Adama. I was rude. You and Kara, it's none of my business. I'm just thinking about her. I'm forgetting you're having a hard time with it, too."

"Believe me, you can't say anything that will make me feel any worse than I do right now. But I swear to you I didn't plan it. It just happened."

"There are a lot of things that we don't plan, but they happen. Look, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. You can take it or not. If you turn her on, she'll sleep with you. It doesn't necessarily mean she can or will love you. But if you're her friend, she'll stick with you through anything. You want Kara to always be in your life, Adama, then be her friend. Maybe you two will be more than that to each other some day, but be her friend now. That's my advice. For what it's worth."

Lee finally looked up and said, "You don't know what I would give if she and I could just start over as friends. And you know something else? Kara's lucky to have had you in her life." He couldn't believe he'd just said that, but he meant it.

"Yeah, well the only reason I lasted with her is because we…because _she_ got past the attraction part and we became real friends. I never quite got past it, but I was smart enough not to let her know. Hell, don't get me wrong. I do love my wife. I really do. She's everything a man could ask for, and she's a wonderful mother to our little girl, and a great stepmother to my sons from my first marriage. But Kara, well Kara's just special."

"Yeah, she is. Special."

Connelly had a far away look now. "She's the one you can't have, the one you had to let go, the one you admire because she's got the guts to put herself inside a little glass and metal shell and throw herself at the stars. And she's the one you sometimes wonder after you'd had a couple of drinks just how much you'd give for one more night with her."

"Damn, Major Connelly" Lee said and realized he was well on his way to getting drunk. "You're a frakking poet. Do you now that?" They both laughed.

"Yeah," Connelly finally answered him. Lee could tell Connelly was on his way to getting drunk as well. "And if you don't understand the meaning of my poetry tonight, then I'm sure one day you will."

TBC…


	37. The Bottomless Well of Grief

Warnings: Mildly explicit sexual content

Chapter 37

The Bottomless Well of Grief

Six drinks, or was it seven? That was all he'd had, but they had been strong and he'd had no food except a bowl of pretzels he had shared with the major. Earlier, before Lee forgot about the time, he called the house and told Henry he would be really late. He also asked Connelly if his wife would not be wondering where he was.

"She's on Virgon with our little girl. They won't be back until Friday. Her father is dying of cancer. He's got maybe six months now, and for the last year she's been making the trip every other month or so. She wants our daughter to remember her grandfather. I don't know. She's only four. I don't know. How much does a kid remember when they're four?"

"You're asking the wrong person."

"What? You were never four? Tell me how you skipped being four?"

For some reason that was really funny. They both laughed. Yeah, that was funny.

Finally at ten o'clock the major stood up, not completely steady, but he was on his feet. "I don't have an early class tomorrow, but I do have classes. I don't want to wear sunglasses to hide bloodshot eyes. I've got to get going while I still can."

"Yeah, me too."

"You do know you can't drive, don't you?"

"I know. I'll get a transport and come back for the car tomorrow. What about you?"

"I live a few blocks from here. Down near the Fashion District. It was my wife's place from before we got married. I'm going to walk." Connelly put out his hand. "Good luck, Adama. With your career. And with Kara."

Lee took it. "Thank you. Next time you see Kara tell her…frak, never mind. I'll tell her myself."

"Want me to get Joe there behind the bar to call a transport for you?"

"No. I think there's a station a few blocks from here. I'll walk down. The fresh air will do me good."

"It's more than a few blocks, but you'll find it."

They parted outside the bar, Connelly going off in one direction, Lee the other. But after six blocks, he realized he either wasn't where he thought he was or had missed the station. How do you miss a transport station? He wasn't that frakking drunk. Or was he?

He doubled back and decided he was a block too far west before he started off in the opposite direction. He found himself after four more blocks in an area of luxury apartment buildings and exclusive restaurants. The street looked vaguely familiar. No transport station here either. He finally admitted to himself that he was lost. He turned down a smaller street, a shortcut back to where he had started. He would get Joe to call him a transport.

He started looking around and suddenly realized why it all looked familiar to him.

Gianne's apartment building was at the end of the block. The way things had ended with them had always bothered him. She'd called him on the morning after Karl Agathon's graduation party, wanting again to get back together, and when he had asked her why she started something with Kara, her voice had risen and she'd lost her temper. He hung up on her when she called Kara "that quick-fisted bitch" like she had the night before. Not pretty, not his fault, but it should have ended better than that. He'd never had a relationship to end that badly. Frak, he'd never had a relationship end badly at all before Gianne. They had ended, but not badly.

In the beginning, at the start of his second year at the Academy when they'd met, things had been good with him and Gianne. They had stayed good until he met Kara, and even for a while after that, but his feelings for Kara had taken something from his feelings for Gianne, something he'd never been able to get back, so in a way it was his fault for not ending the relationship sooner. He should have been honest with Gianne. Yeah, he should have been honest. Everybody deserved a little honesty.

Maybe if he saw Gianne and apologized it would make him feel better. Yeah, that's what he needed to do. See Gianne and explain what had happened. The security in her building was tight and he decided that if he actually got all the way to her door, then he was doing the right thing. The right thing. Yeah, the right thing would make him feel better than he did now.

He got to the entrance and was able to get inside because a couple was on their way out and he caught the door before it closed. _Past the first test._ He was able to get across the lobby because both security guards were looking at the bank of monitors in front of them. _Past the second test._ Someone was just getting off the key activated elevator and he got on. _Past the third test. _He pushed number ten and began rising. The last test would be if she were at home.

She answered the door barefoot, dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Her blond hair was short now like Kara's or did she have it put up with some sort of clip? He wasn't sure because by that time he was having difficulty focusing.

"What a pleasant surprise. Lee Adama. Drunk." Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

He tried to say "Hello, Gianne." Only it came out sounding like, "'Lo Jan."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

She swam in his field of vision. He opened his mouth to tell her why he was there, to tell her he was sorry for the way things had ended with them, to tell her it wasn't her fault that he loved Kara and that Zak had died. All that came out was. "Zak's gone. Zak died."

"Zak, your brother Zak is dead? Oh, Lee. I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Viper went down." He could feel his stomach start to rebel. "Crashed. Killed him." He knew he was going to be sick. "Bathroom," he managed to get out.

Gianne helped him. She didn't want him throwing up in her foyer on her feet and her fine silk rug. He made it but just barely. He slammed the bathroom door and was immediately on his knees vomiting into the toilet. There wasn't much that came up. Most of the alcohol was already in his system. But he felt better. He sat back on the tile floor, leaned against the wall and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Yeah, that was better.

Why had he told her about Zak instead of Kara? What was happening to him? He pulled his knees up and put his arms across them and put his head down. If he could just sleep for a few minutes he could figure it out. The room spun crazily, forcing him to open his eyes. His sweater smelled like cigarette smoke. Wash it. Yeah, wash it. That's what he needed to do. Wash his sweater and himself, too. Wash it all away.

He kicked off his shoes and crawled over to the shower, got inside the glass doors and turned on the water. Rich people's showers didn't start cold and get warm. They started warm. He sat in the corner with the warm spray beating down on him. What was it he was trying to remember? What was he trying to forget? Zak. Zak was gone. And Kara. Kara was gone, too.

And finally after weeks of bottling up his pain and his guilt, Lee Adama began to cry. He cried until he emptied the well of his grief and found that it did have a bottom after all. A bottom where he stayed, waiting in the warm rain, waiting for the well to fill with tears again, fill with warm tears and drown him.

He had only the faintest recollection of Gianne coming into the bathroom and turning off the shower, of helping him pull off his soaked clothes, of taking a towel and gently drying him the way she would dry a baby.

He didn't remember her putting him to bed at all.

A long time later or a short time, he had no idea which. He was somewhere very soft and dark and Kara was whispering to him, her hands were on him, and she was telling him how much she loved him, and his heart warmed and began to soar. She loved him, she loved him and she was telling him, her hands were telling him and then her mouth was telling him. Her mouth was hot on him and wet, and he responded to her, grew hard. Yes, oh gods, yes. And then she took her mouth away and she was straddling him, taking him inside her just like she'd done in his bed, and he was caught in her rhythm, riding the wave with her, waiting for her to call his name like she'd done that night, waiting for her, waiting for her.

"Touch me, Lee. Touch me. Please."

Not Kara's voice. Confusion. Where was he?

"Touch me. Please. Please." The voice was pleading. The wave was cresting.

Oh, gods, he was too far gone to stop. He took Gianne's hips in his hands and finished them both with a few hard thrusts. And then he was falling again, back through a hole in space, back into the night, the ink black night, the darkest of nights because the moon had set and someone had taken away the stars.

He woke up with a headache and a burning pain in the pit of his stomach. The faint light of early morning was in the room. It took several minutes, but most of the previous evening came back to him. How much had been real? How much a drunk man's dream?

He sat up and found the headache was only slightly worse. He went into the bathroom and for the second time in less that twelve hours, he turned on the shower, felt the warm water beating down on him. This time he used the soap and shampoo.

Gianne had left a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt on the counter for him. He dried himself and put them on, and noticed that they were ones he had left over there during his Academy days. She'd kept them. Why had she kept them for four years? He was too hung over to think about it now.

She was sitting at the table in her kitchen staring out the window at the city skyline. There was a cup of coffee in front of her and another one at the place across the table.

Lee sat down. "About last night, Gi. I'm sorry I showed up here drunk like I did."

"Tell me about Zak. That's why you came here, isn't it? To talk about Zak."

He found himself telling her everything from how his father had gotten Zak into the Academy up to the crash that would go down as pilot error.

She listened to him without commenting. Finally when he had talked himself out, she said, "Lee, I am sorry. Really I am."

Lee nodded. "Yeah." He noticed that she was dressed in tan slacks and had on a white shirt and a navy cardigan sweater that had an insignia on it. "What's the sweater for?"

"_My_ _uniform_. I'm a teacher's assistant now at the Regent's School. Third grade. A couple of years ago I went back and took enough classes to qualify. It doesn't pay much, but I love it. I really love working with the kids."

"I'm glad, Gianne. I always knew there was something for you besides tending bar. You have so much more potential."

"In a way I have that girl, your girlfriend or whatever, Kara to thank for it. And you, too, Lee. In a way."

Lee looked at her skeptically. "How?"

"That night when she and I got into it…I don't know…that did something to me. I made up my mind then that I was going to do something else with my life. That was a low point for me. Really. Brawling with another woman over a guy who didn't care about me. I realized that the next day when I called you and you hung up on me. And yes, I was yelling at you and I'm sorry for that. It was a turning point for me. I started getting it together after that."

"Kara's not my girlfriend, Gianne, she never was. She was engaged to Zak. She was going to marry my brother." Somehow saying the words made them more real to him.

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, really. But that's how it was. Look, I'm sure you've got to get to school. I'll be going. My clothes?"

"In the dryer." She looked at her watch. "I've got about twenty minutes before I have to leave."

"Gianne, I really am sorry for showing up here drunk last night. I didn't mean to…I hope I didn't…do anything out of line…something I shouldn't have."

She smiled sadly at him, but she looked him in the eyes. "You mean like some drunk love-making that you don't even remember this morning? Of course not."

"Gianne, I…"

"It's okay. I'm with somebody now, Lee. In fact we're engaged." She held out her left hand, which sported a beautiful, square-cut diamond ring, a ring he hadn't noticed the night before. Was she wearing it the night before?

"Wow. Well...congratulations."

"He works for my father, and the only reason he wasn't here last night is because he's on Picon now where my father is building another resort hotel. He's one of the architects for the project."

"That's great…that's good. I'm happy for you."

"You've been gone from my life for four years. You didn't expect me to wait forever did you?"

"No. Of course not." He heard the dryer buzz in the laundry room off the kitchen. "Sounds like I'm done, then."

She brought him his slacks and sweater, socks and underwear, all warm and dry and he went into the bathroom and dressed as quickly as he could.

She walked with him to the door.

"Good luck with your life, Lee."

"You, too, Gianne. Will I be getting an invitation to the wedding?"

"Of course. You'll be first on my list."

He hugged her and she hugged him back. Why did he feel so sad? He started walking toward the elevator and didn't look back. If she closed the door before he got on, it was so softly that he didn't hear it.

...

Three days later, back on the _Atlantia_, he found that he had managed to work through the worst of his problems with Zak's death and with losing Kara. What was left of the issues, he had buried deeply enough that they didn't interfere with his job. There were no more calls to the CAG's office.

He still needed to talk to Kara, but that wasn't possible right now except ship-to-ship. He knew there was no frakking way he was going to go down to Comm Central and talk across static-heavy lines to her while the Comm Officer listened. He didn't even want to send something by electronic mail knowing the Comm Officer could probably see that as well, so he decided to write her a letter.

It took him nearly a month and so many attempts that the clerk in the ship's store asked him if he was writing a novel when he bought his third 10-pack of letter paper. In some ways a novel would probably have been easier. He wrote long letters and short letters, he poured out his heart, but he couldn't seem to get it right. It was too much or too little. He put the letter aside for several days and started again.

The final version, the one that he put into the mail slot at the Comm Center wasn't long, but he believed it said what he wanted to say to her until they met face to face.

_Kara,_

_I've started this letter a hundred times and still am not sure I've got it right. One day we'll talk. I promise. _

_I want to apologize __not__ for what happened the last time I was with you, but for the timing. I realize I don't have the right to ask, but I'm going to anyway. Will you accept my apology? If there's a chance for us to be friends again, to maybe just be Starbuck and Apollo, I hope you'll let me know. Lee._

Almost two months went by before he heard from her. When he did, he was glad he kept her reply to read in his rack that night, glad no one could see his face when he opened it, glad no one could see the way his eyes filled with tears. She was telling him there was no fairy-tale ending for them, but at least she had replied. He couldn't ask for more right now. He could hope, but he wouldn't ask.

Her reply was written on part of a page that looked like it had been torn out of a training manual of some sort. The page number was on the bottom-59. He imagined her sitting in the squadron ready room, stifling a yawn, barely paying attention to her CAG while he went over some new regulations. He imagined her writing on the blank lower half of the page and then slowly and quietly tearing it off.

He imagined her folding her "letter" a couple of times and sticking it in a pocket of her flight suit where it stayed until she remembered it a day or a week or a month later, until she finally found an envelop and addressed it to him.

_Yeah, __Apollo. _ I'm okay with it. My bad timing as much as yours. I can handle being your friend. You're going to have to forget about the puppies, though. Starbuck. 

TBC…


	38. Welcome Aboard

Chapter 38

Welcome Aboard

Kara stood in the _Galactica's_ cargo hold looking around. One of the privates from the _Russell Berkely_ pushed her footlocker up to her on a trolley. "Where to, sir?"

"I'm not sure. I thought someone would be…"

"Kara!" She heard the shout and looked around. Karl Agathon was coming around a forklift. "Kara."

She started running and leapt into his arms. He swung her around. Damn, she wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to cry.

"Gods, I've missed you, Karl. You don't know how much I've missed you."

"Yeah. Oh, man, yeah. You just don't know. Come on. I'm on duty and I'm not supposed to even be down here. I got a couple of pilots covering my ass, but I've got to get back." He grabbed the trolley and started pushing. For the fist time Kara noticed a slim, dark-haired very attractive lieutenant who had fallen into step beside them.

Kara, this is Margaret Edmonson, Racetrack, Raptor pilot. Maggie, this is Kara Thrace, Starbuck."

They nodded at each other as Karl kept walking and they followed.

They rode the elevator up two levels and Karl left them. "Maggie will take you the rest of the way to the Viper pilot's quarters. I've got to get back. I'll see you tonight." He gave her another long, tight hug and was gone.

"You got in the best room, right across from the bathroom," Racetrack said as they walked down the corridor toward the pilot's quarters.

"So," Kara asked as Racetrack showed her which bunk was being assigned to her. "You frakking my buddy, Helo?"

Racetrack's cheeks colored. "And that's your business how?"

"Not frakking him but you want to?" Kara grinned. "Don't worry. He and I are just best friends. He's like my brother, so I'm not going to get in the way of whatever he's got going on with you or anyone else."

"We aren't…"

"Yeah, okay. None of my business. I know."

"I'm supposed to tell you that the CAG wants to see you as soon as you're settled in. His office is…"

"Yeah, thanks. I've been on a battlestar before. Beside the squadron ready room, right?"

"Right. Well, I'll leave you to get unpacked."

Kara got her belongings put up, took a shower, and put on her uniform in thirty minutes. Not bad. She found the CAG's office without any problem. He motioned for her to come in.

"Lieutenant Kara Thrace, reporting as ordered, sir." She saluted.

"At ease, Lieutenant. I'm Jackson Spencer. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you, sir. It's good to be here."

"I'm aware, Lieutenant, of the special circumstances of your arrival due to Commander Adama's request. I am also aware that you and the Commander's son were engaged."

Damn. News travels fast. "I would like both of those facts kept confidential if possible, sir."

"I don't have a problem with that. As far as I'm concerned you're just another Viper pilot being assigned to the _Galactica._"

"Thank you, sir."

"I have been asked to tell you, however, that you've been invited to dine with the Commander and his Executive Officer, Colonel Saul Tigh, this evening at 19:00 in the Commander's quarters."

"What, sir?"

"You have a dinner invitation that is not usually extended to arriving Viper pilots."

"I don't guess I can decline then, can I, sir?"

"I wouldn't recommend it."

...

She was leaving the pilot's quarters that evening when Karl, just off duty, came in. "Where are you going all dolled up?" He asked noting her uniform.

"Something I got to do."

"What? Dinner with the Commander?"

Kara grabbed his arm and pushed him back against his rack. "Not so loud, will you? Not just the Commander. His XO, too."

"Oh, lucky you. Look, just so you'll know Kara, most of the pilots know about you and Zak. And I didn't tell them. Word got around after Commander Adama went to Caprica for the funeral. So be cool about it. Commander's little favorite. Nobody will hold it against you. Much."

He managed to keep a straight face for only a few seconds.

"Oh, frak you, Karl. You don't know how much I've missed you giving me grief." She grinned. "So do you want to go with me?"

"Not on your life. You're in for a real treat. I wouldn't want to spoil your fun."

"Why do you say that? Down on Caprica the Commander seemed like a really nice man."

"He is a nice man. It's not Commander Adama I'm talking about. It's his XO, Colonel Tigh. The _Berkeley_ brings in five cases of booze a week. Four for the entire ship and one for Tigh. So, watch yourself with him."

...

Outside the Commander's office Kara wiped her hands down the sides of her uniform pants. She didn't want any sweaty handshakes in case one was offered.

The Commander himself opened the door. "Come in, Lieutenant Thrace. May I call you Kara?" He held out his hand.

She took it. "Yes, sir. That would be nice. I'd like that. Or Starbuck. That's fine, too."

"Starbuck. Starbuck? Now where have I heard that name before? I'm sure it will come to me in a minute. I'd like to introduce you to the ship's Executive Officer. This is Colonel Saul Tigh."

"A pleasure, sir."

Tigh nodded and raised his glass to her. "Lieutenant."

The phone began buzzing insistently. The Commander walked across the room. "Excuse me a minute."

Tigh turned his back to the Commander and asked softly. "So you're the one taught Zak to fly a Viper?"

"Yes, sir."

"You didn't do such a good job, did you?"

"Sir?"

"Losing his son really messed Bill up. He hasn't been the same since."

Kara gritted her teeth. Across the room the Commander talked on the phone with his back to them.

"I can assure you, Colonel Tigh, that I took my responsibilities as an instructor very seriously with _all_ my students. Yes, sir, very seriously." She looked him directly in the eyes. "Very…soberly."

Something passed between them. _Oh, yeah_, she thought. _Busted, you son of a bitch_._ You're half-drunk at least._

She saw him clench his jaw. "You'll do well to watch yourself on this ship, Lieutenant. I've got your number."

"And I have yours as well, _sir._"

Commander Adama hung up the phone and turned around. "Who's hungry?"

Kara smiled brightly. "That would be me, sir."

"Good, then, let's eat."

"I'll leave you two," Tigh said. "I know you have some talking to do."

"We do." The Comannder aswered him. "Thank you for coming by, Saul. I wanted you to meet Kara."

"And I've done that." He nodded once. "Lieutenant."

Kara's nodded in return. "Colonel."

Tigh left and Bill poured two drinks. "Will you join me?"

"Yes, sir. I believe I will."

"Starbuck. Starbuck and Apollo, the name of some children's books I used to read to Zak and Lee when they were younger. Books his grandfather wrote." He studied her. "Your mother or father must have read them to you, too."

"No, sir, but I am somewhat acquainted with the story."

"It's where Lee got his call sign."

"Really, sir? Not from being the son of Zeus?"

"Are you trying to flatter me, Kara?"

"Of course I am, sir," she smiled.

Adama finished his drink. "Well, it won't work on me," he said gruffly, but he smiled, too.

During the meal, which wasn't as awkward as Kara had thought it would be, they didn't talk about Zak or Lee at all. There was an awkward moment, though, at the end when he asked her how Lee was doing. She just managed to meet his eye.

"I think he'll be all right, sir."

"Kara, you don't have to keep calling me _sir _when we're alone."

"Yes, sir."

Bill got up, poured an after-dinner drink and offered one to her.

"I'm going to decline, sir. I'll be flying tomorrow. I can't wait, actually."

He looked at his glass as he swirled the dark amber liquid around. "Lee and Zak were so different. Lee is such an achiever. Not extremely aggressive, but he always wanted to be the best. Zak didn't mind as long as he got average grades. He was more of a team player, more laid-back, not the standout that his brother is. But you know them both. You saw that in them, I'm sure."

"Yes, sir."

"Lee blames me, you know, for Zak's death. Blames me for pushing Zak into the military when it was really Zak's decision. Lee doesn't seem to realize just how much Zak idolized him and wanted to be like him…in every way."

"I know that Commander. And I want you to know that I don't blame you for any of that. I…I know better. I tried to tell Lee that night after the funeral, but he…we…got sidetracked and never got back to it."

"Lee can be extraordinarily stubborn sometimes." He looked away for a few moments and then seemed to pull himself back to the present. "I have something for you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver ring, a slim band, and offered it to her on his open palm.

Kara's breath caught. The ring she had given Zak, her father's ring.

"The priest on the base gave this to me." He held it out. "I believe it's yours."

Kara couldn't speak. She felt her eyes begin to well with tears. She swallowed hard, nodded, drew a deep breath, and took the ring. Nodded again, fought hard for control and found she couldn't look at him.

"I want to thank you for joining me for dinner," he said gently. "We'll do it again sometime."

She finally got herself under control, found her voice and looked up. "It was my pleasure, sir." She closed her fist around the ring in her palm. "Thank you."

She started back to the pilots' quarters and then stopped on the side of the corridor. The ring was still clutched in her hand. She opened her fist and took it, slipped it on her third finger, then the middle finger. It was too big. She finally realized that it best fit her thumb, right above the first joint. It was good there, she would see it always, a reminder of her father and of Zak, two men she had loved and lost.

Kara knew then that everything was going to be fine. Fine with her and the Commander. That coming to the _Galactica_ hadn't been a mistake. That she had found a new home. A new beginning. Another chance. She said a silent prayer to the gods that she wouldn't screw it up.

TBC…


	39. Dogfight

Chapter 39

Dogfight

Three days on the _Galactica_ was all it took for Kara to make a name for herself. Her second day on board, her first day out in a Viper, she had shown off, but it just felt so damned good to be back in the cockpit without the responsibility for a student. So maybe she should have been a little more cautious. The barrel roll over Helo's Raptor just before they started their landing approach was, in retrospect, a really bad idea, but she was in control, in a Viper she was always in total and complete control.

Nevertheless the next morning in the squadron ready room, their CAG, Jackson Spencer, called her on it. He didn't mention her name, and maybe that was because she was new or maybe it was because he knew the Old Man had gotten her the assignment, but he did let her know that he wouldn't tolerate her showing off.

"It's been a while since I've covered some rules with all of you," he began, looking directly at her, "so I think this is as good a time as any. I don't want _any_ of my pilots thinking that they are exempt from the rules governing the safety of my squadron."

He then proceeded to go over in detail all standard flight safety protocols to the point that most of their eyes began glazing over and many of them were squirming in their seats trying to stay awake or trying not to pee their flight suits. But his message was clear. Follow the rules or we'll do this again. All of us.

That night in the officer's rec room as some of them were relaxing over drinks, the pilot generally regarded as _Galactica's_ Top Gun came into the room, looked around, saw her and loudly said, "And who do we have to thank, fellow pilots, for being subjected to that boring hour and a half lecture this morning on protocols before we even got down to the day's agenda? Could it be _Starbuck_ our newest rookie here?"

Karl glanced over at her and she recognized the look. _Let it go_.

"Yeah, I'm to blame, Shortstop," she answered, using his call sign. She didn't know who looked more surprised, Shortstop or Karl. "That barrel roll over Helo's Raptor was a bad move and I won't do it again. Just one thing, though, I'm not a rook. I haven't been flying Vipers as long as you have, but I have been flying them better."

"Well, in that case it's a good thing the CAG clipped your wings this morning."

Why couldn't she just let it go? Why couldn't he? "Yeah," she grinned. "Just like I'm going to clip yours. You mMight as well get ready to give up that Top Gun mug."

"You couldn't clip my wings with a chainsaw."

"That so?"

"Yeah, rook, I can out fly you with my left hand all day."

"Is that because you practice with something else in it all night?"

She heard snickers from a few of the pilots around them.

"Lords of Kobol, Kara," Karl said quietly. "Shut up. You've been on board three days and you're about to go toe-to-toe with the best Viper pilot we've got. You cannot do this." He turned to Shortstop. "For frak's sake, Shortstop. Come over here and sit down and have a drink. Kara is just running her mouth. It's a bad habit of hers. Don't pay any attention to her. You two hotshots just play nice, okay?"

"I'm a hell of a lot better pilot than he is," she hissed.

Karl leaned over. "That may be so, but this is not the way to get started with these guys, believe me. You just do not want to get into a pissing contest right off the bat."

"Why wait? It's going to happen sooner or later."

"Then make it later."

"That's not my way. And you know it. Somebody gets in my face, I'm going to handle it."

"Hey, Shortstop," one of the other pilots said. "Maybe you'd better listen to her. She aced Colonel Burgher's Viper sims at the Academy first time out, one right after the other. Didn't even break a sweat. Left the Colonel speechless. I was there that day. I saw it."

"Sims aren't the real thing." Shortstop said, but Kara could see that had gotten his attention. They had the attention of most of the other pilots, too. In fact, Colonel Tigh, drink in hand had just come into the room and he was listening with the rest of them.

"Not only that. She took down my roommate, Doug Heberly, in Dogfight. Her first year. He was a senior. At the time he was Burgher's sim pet. It took him down a couple of notches. He deserved it, though. Man did he deserve it. He was one of the most arrogant assholes I've ever known."

"Are you talking about Dogfight the arcade game?" Racetrack asked.

Karl answered. "Yep. There was a Video Arcade a couple of blocks from McGee's. Dogfight was one of the most popular games. They had about a dozen Dogfight games lined up down the center aisle. I was never in there that you didn't have to wait to play."

Several of the pilots nodded. They had been there.

"Kara and I were down there one Saturday afternoon during her first year. Heberly liked to go down to the Arcade and take on all challengers. We'd watched him do it a bunch of times, and there was this one kid, maybe twelve or thirteen who kept coming back, and each time Heberly would just destroy him. Forty-five seconds, a minute was about as long as anybody could last against him."

"Something about his attitude just got under my skin." Kara said, looking directly at Shortstop.

"When Kara first went over to him, Heberly acted like he thought she was going to ask for his autograph or maybe permission to kiss his class ring or something. But he finally realized that a first-year, a _girl_ actually wanted to go up against him in Dogfight."

"I made his day." Kara grinned. "For a few minutes, anyway."

"So he's like, '_We'll do the beginner level so you'll be able to last five seconds against me.' _And Kara says '_No, let's play the advanced level. Make it even more fun for you._' He couldn't stop laughing. The Dogfight he played was old propjets by the way. Nothing sophisticated like Vipers."

"But just as much fun."

"Well they get seated opposite each other and he starts the game. A minute goes by and he still hasn't taken her out, two minutes and he's starting to sweat. He still hasn't figured out that Kara is just playing with him. Four minutes, which is about three minutes longer than anybody has lasted against him before, and the first really worried look crosses his face."

"Yeah, think he'd lost some of his, uh, confidence by then," Kara snickered.

"Finally about five minutes in, and he was right on her tail, almost had her in his sights. He'd already gone to guns up and was getting ready for the kill. Hell, even I thought he had her, when she does a simple Split-S. She rolled her plane upside down, pulled back on the stick and just dropped nose-down out of the sky. And there's Heberly, thumbs on the triggers, gloating like a son-of-a-bitch until he realizes there's not a damned thing to shoot at. Just empty blue sky."

Several of the other pilots were nodding. They all understood what she had done. A basic flight maneuver that had been around for hundreds of years, but very effective when done right, especially on an opponent who has underestimated you.

"Anyway, Heberly is looking all around, thinking something has gone wrong with the game. He's looking everywhere but where he should be. When Kara gets to the bottom of the loop, she reverses and climbs right up behind him, guns blazing. Took his ass out in a _beautiful_ fireball. And you know what, even better than the look on Heberly's face was the look on that kid's, the one he'd just been destroying for weeks."

Yeah, Kara thought, that look had made her day, her week, hell, her whole month. A score for all those little guys.

"So Shortstop, that's the story of Dogfight. Learn from another's mistake. I know sims and video arcade games aren't the real thing, but I guess the point is don't underestimate Starbuck. Just when you think you've got her number, she'll pull a Split-S on you and you'll be sorry." Karl winked at her.

He'd stopped her from doing something stupid. Kara understood again why she loved her friend the way she did. She glanced at Tigh just long enough to see the dark look he was giving her. Yeah, if she could rate that look on a scale of one to ten, it would be about an eleven. He just thought he had her number. She definitely had his. She grinned and raised her drink to him, wiggled it just slightly and saw the look get even darker.

She settled down after that, though. She and Shortstop paid each other a wary respect. He was good, damned good, she would hand him that. She was better, but she let it go, didn't mention it again and neither did he. The other pilots accepted her, respected her for her skills, but she kept her distant from them. She had Karl, and she didn't need any other friends.

She pushed Zak and Lee from her mind as best she could and concentrated on her flying, concentrated on the one thing in her life she had never screwed up, piloting a Viper.

Two months into her assignment on the _Galactica_ she finally heard from Lee, a hand-written letter, and for a few weeks everything was churned up again. Feelings she thought she had dealt with pushed up from somewhere inside and almost overwhelmed her. Karl noticed and asked. She told him she didn't want to talk. He asked her again a few days later. Zak? She shrugged. Let him think what he would. How could she explain something to him that she didn't understand herself?

Could she ever have been happy with Zak? Maybe if she hadn't met Lee until after she'd met Zak. Yeah, if Lee hadn't been there first, she could have been happy with Zak. But Lee was there first, and she cared about him, cared about him a lot more than she should have even while she was with Zak, and now she didn't know what would have happened with her and Zak had Zak not died. There was no point speculating, though. It really didn't matter now. Now she had to deal with what she felt for Lee.

She kept his letter in her flight suit, had almost memorized it, and one morning as she sat near the back of the squadron ready room she discretely took it out and read it again. They were supposed to be looking at a new manual on some computer upgrades for their Vipers that were coming soon. Instead she took her pen out of her pocket and wrote a reply to him on the bottom of one of the manual's pages. Only when the CAG asked them to put the manuals at the back as they left did she realize it wasn't hers to keep. Quickly she tore off the bottom half of the page, folded it, and stuck it in her flight suit with Lee's letter.

Eventually she got around to bumming an envelope from Karl and addressing it to Lee. She kept that in her flight suit for a couple of days before she made the trip down to the Comm Room and dropped it in the slot. Yeah, she could handle being friends with Lee. She could do that. One day they would talk. He'd promised her that.

Starting over was a good idea. He would get in touch with her and they would talk. He'd promised. They would have some time apart, time to think, and then they would talk. She could handle that. Where things went for them after that they would just have to wait and see. Maybe they would never be more than friends, but maybe, just maybe that night hadn't been a one-time thing for them.

A few weeks after that, the CAG introduced the team of four contractors who would be upgrading their Viper's computer software and in some cases installing new hardware.

"This is Jared Daniels, chief technician. He and his team are civilian employees of the military so you do not salute them, but you are to cooperate with them in any way they ask. I'm going to let him introduce himself and his team. Mr. Daniels, the podium is yours."

He walked down from the back of the room, and the shock and then the joy on his face when he saw her on the second row were visible for only a few seconds, but it were there. He stammered once during the introduction of his team, but then as he began to explain the upgrades, he settled down. He was into what he knew best. When he paused to pushed his glasses up on his nose, he glanced at her and the look said exactly what she wanted it to say. _We'll get together soon. _She smiled at him and noticed that Karl was watching her.

It took Jared only two days before he worked out a way for them to get together, before he discretely followed her to the showers, before he stepped quickly in with her and shut the door behind him. They didn't even speak. He had matured in the three years since she'd last seen him. He'd added some muscle and was just as good-looking now as he had been then with his slightly spiky brown hair and his blue eyes. He gently pushed her back against the wall and she shut her eyes as they kissed. He wasn't Lee, but she couldn't have Lee right now, and she needed this. Her arms tightened around him as he lifted her. Oh gods, yes, she needed this.

That night she was mellowed out, relaxing in the rec room, when she noticed that Karl kept glancing at her.

"What?" She finally asked and grinned.

"Damn," was his only reply.

"Hey, you could be getting some, too. How about Racetrack? I've seen the way she looks at you. I bet you and her…"

"Keep your voice down, will you? For frak's sake, Kara, she and I fly together sometimes. You know the rules against…it's not that I haven't thought about it…but…it's just not a good idea to frak your fellow pilots."

"Right. Hey, one of those computer technicians is female."

"Oh yeah?" Karl retorted. "Which one?"

TBC…

**AN: **No, Jared Daniels, the computer technician is not a Cylon. He and his fellow technicians are just government employees, but they are unwittingly (thanks to Gaius Baltar) doing work that will aid the Cylons when their attack begins. (Remember how Jackson Spencer and his squadron's Vipers shut down just before they engage the Cylon Raiders in the Miniseries). And no, Karl isn't jealous of Kara and Jared. He's just jealous that Kara is getting some and he isn't at the moment. And I absolutely mean no insult to any female computer techs since I would be insulting the women of my own profession. Karl is just being a real smart ass.


	40. Invitations

Chapter 40

Invitations

Six weeks after getting Kara's reply to his letter, Lee went down to the Comm Center and filled out the form to make a ship-to-ship call. Then he stood in line for ten minutes to hand it to one of the ensigns who placed the out-going calls and who looked over it before looking back up at him.

"Verifying that this is not an emergency call, sir," the young ensign said.

"No emergency." Lee answered.

"Is Lieutenant Kara Thrace on…" he checked the form again, "…the _Galactica_ expecting your call?"

"Not at this moment, no, she's not."

"Are you aware, sir, that she will have to be paged and that if she doesn't pick up within ten minutes the call will be disconnected? If she does pick up, you'll have ten minutes from the time she answers."

"I'm aware," Lee answered. "I've made ship-to-ship calls a few times before. And it's all posted on the wall above the forms."

"Most people don't bother to read it. Go to phone C and pick up when the light turns green."

Lee did as he was instructed. The twelve phones were lined along the wall and were separated by small semi-circular partitions at the level of each phone. They afforded very little privacy. They usually had to talk so loud to be heard over the static that the partitions might as well not have been there. Personal ship-to-ship calls didn't get the best frequencies.

Finally the light turned green and he picked up the phone and waited. The line crackled hollow and empty. He knew that on the _Galactica_ another ensign in their Comm Center was paging her to one of the designated phones throughout the ship. If she picked up, he would patch the call through to the _Atlantia_. He waited the whole ten minutes without Kara picking up. He went back to the window and signed the form verifying that the call was not answered.

"Sorry, sir," said the ensign. "Try again later."

Lee nodded. Kara was probably out in her Viper on a patrol or training run. What exactly was he going to say to her anyway? He sure wasn't going to say anything too personal. Probably just see if they could plan to be on Caprica or Picon at the same time at some point in the near future. Where they went from there would depend on what happened when they saw each other and what they said to each other. In the meantime she'd said she was okay with being friends. That would have to do for now. Just knowing that would have to do. She didn't hate him and he was grateful for that.

He moved to another window in the Comm Room and checked to see if he had any mail. He had a letter from his mother and a larger cream-colored envelope that looked like an engraved invitation. Of course, what else would it be? Gianne's wedding invitation. He carried both pieces of mail back to his bunk, dropped them on the blanket and went to take a shower.

That night after a drink and some time spent relaxing in the officer's rec room, he returned to his bunk and opened his mother's letter. It was just one of the newsy missives that she sent him about once every ten days or two weeks. News about Henry and the Museum, news about her garden club, nothing important in of itself, but news from home and his mother was always important to him.

He finally tore the invitation's envelope open. It was not to Gianne's wedding, however. It was to the grand opening of her father's new resort hotel and casino on Picon in a month's time. There was a short hand-written note folded inside the invitation. Gianne was no longer engaged. No explanation as to why not. She wasn't asking anything other than that he be her escort for the weekend's activities when the resort officially opened. An RSVP card addressed to her was enclosed.

His first inclination was to decline, but he put the card and invitation on the shelf above his bunk. He decided to think about it, sleep on it before he made a decision. Escort for the weekend. What would be the big deal with that? He would be ready for some leave by then anyway. What would be wrong with an all-expenses paid weekend on Picon at a nice resort?

...

Jared Daniels and his team were on the _Galactica_ nearly two months. He and Kara didn't repeat their initial encounter in the shower. She knew they were lucky to have gotten away once without being caught. There were very few secrets on a battlestar and Kara didn't want this one to get out. Karl knew, but she never worried about him telling anyone.

Not that there was anything wrong with hers and Jared's relationship. It wasn't against regulations. Normally she wouldn't have cared who knew. She hadn't bothered to hide anything on the _Triton_ when they were seeing each other. But right now she just want anything getting back to the Commander, or gods forbid, Colonel Tigh. She wasn't sure the Old Man would understand. What was between her and Jared had nothing to do with love or futures. Or Zak. No, she wasn't at all sure the Commander would understand that. As for Tigh, she was sure that son of a bitch would go straight to Commander Adama if he found out. He'd do anything to tarnish her in the Commander's eyes.

She and Jared did manage to get together when their schedules permitted, though, thanks to Jared's ingenuity. After she explained the situation to him, he found an out-of-the-way computer-wiring room on one of the upper decks, a room that had once been a small guest quarters and still had a bunk in the back. A few years earlier, when Commander Adama had refused to allow their computer systems to be networked into the fleet's defense system or converted to wireless, the room had been taken by his technicians for their internal connectivity equipment mainly due to its remote location and easy access to the central conduit system.

Kara never asked Jared how he got the 8-digit code that it took to open the door, nor did she comment when he told her there was no need to worry about any internal log records indicating the wiring room had been entered. He was as good at his job as she was at hers and she knew that there probably wasn't a system in the ship that he wasn't able to get into.

Their hideaway was perfect, a cozy little nook full of routers and hubs and modems with winking red and green lights and the constant hum of the air conditioning that cooled them.

Eight weeks of stolen moments and physical bliss. And then he was gone, on to the next battlestar, the _Solaria, _to upgrade her Vipers. She didn't go to the transport to see him off. They had said their farewells the night before in the way they communicated best and there was nothing left to say.

Jared jokingly told her to keep her hands off a certain hot-looking tech on the crew that was coming in a few weeks to work on their Raptors. Kara told him to concentrate on the _Solaria's_ Vipers and leave their hot pilots alone. She halfway believed he would, but knew if he didn't, and she ever found out, it wouldn't bother her that much. She hoped he was equally as unconcerned about her.

She still moped for a few days after Jared was gone, only feeling like herself when she was out in her Viper. The minute she got into the cockpit it all went away, all of it. She still carried Lee's letter in her flight suit, in a pocket right over her heart, carried him with her when she was out among the stars.

She often wondered when she would hear from him again, when he'd get in touch like he'd promised. And as the days went by, her night with him began to seem more and more like a soft, silver dream, a few hours out of time when she'd felt something she'd never felt with any other man, a night that she may never get to repeat.

A week after Jared left, she came into the wardroom one evening to find Karl, candy sucker puffing out one cheek, reading a letter.

"News from home or a girlfriend?"

He took the sucker out. "My sister. Hey, before I forget, I'm pretty sure I heard you being paged a couple of times this afternoon for a ship-to-ship call."

"While I was out on patrol?"

"Yep. Wonder who that might be? You can find out if you go down to the Comm Center and ask for the form. Don't wait too long. I don't know how they did on the _Triton_, but they throw them away here after just a couple of days."

_Jared_, Kara thought. She knew Karl was thinking the same thing, too.

"No point in asking for a form," she said. "We both know who it was. He'll call back. So what's new with Marie?"

"She's engaged. Can you believe it? My little sister is engaged."

"No way, she's like fourteen or something, isn't she?"

Karl squinted one eye in thought. "Actually, she's twenty-two. Frak, we're getting old. It seems like just yesterday that she _was_ fourteen. Mom and Dad and her fiancé's parents are giving them an engagement dinner in a couple of weeks on Caprica. They want me to come home for it. You too."

"Sure they do."

He pushed the letter across the table to her. "Last paragraph," he said before he put the candy sucker back in his mouth.

Kara took the letter and read.

_Mom and Dad and Ted's parents are hosting a dinner for us in four weeks at Bonnie Patrice (hot new restaurant) on Caprica. We want you to come home for it. You have to. Tell Kara she's got to come too. She's like family. Love you. Marie._

_PS. I showed your picture to one of my good friends at work and she really wants to meet you._

The word _really _was underlined three times. Kara pushed the letter back across the table to him, grinned and raised her eyebrows.

"So looks like we'll both be asking for a three-day weekend pass."

...

Friday afternoon a month later the weekly personnel transport delivered them to the air base on Caprica. Before Kara had left to go to the _Galactica_, she had her phone disconnected at her apartment so she now had to make the phone call before she left the base.

"Hello, Carolanne, it's Kara."

"Kara. What a nice surprise. How are you? Where are you?"

"I'm good. Back on Caprica for a few days. How are you doing?"

"I get by. Henry won't let me get too down."

"How is Henry?"

"He's fine."

"I've missed him. Missed seeing both of you."

"Let's get together while you're here. Can we?"

"That's why I'm calling. I need a favor."

"Anything, dear. Just ask."

"I need a dress. I don't own a dress. A friend's sister is having an engagement dinner tomorrow night and I can't…don't…want to wear my uniform. And jeans won't do. It's fancier than that. Any suggestions?"

"Can you meet me in the morning in town?"

"Yep."

"Then be at Marlena's on Seventh and Liske Streets when they open at ten o'clock. We'll get you that dress."

"I don't want to spend a lot of money. I mean I'll probably never wear it again. I'm not…dresses aren't exactly my thing."

"Don't worry, dear. I do know how to find a bargain. I've been doing it for quite a long time. You'll learn if you ever marry a pilot."

Kara laughed. "I don't have to marry one. I am a pilot, remember?"

TBC…


	41. All Dressed Up with Somewhere to Go

Chapter 41

All Dressed Up With Somewhere to Go

"The white one or the blue one or the red one?" Kara looked at the three dresses that she liked the best. She was leaning toward the blue. It was made of some soft material and showed some skin, not too much, but enough, short, but not too short. Sexy, if she could ever think of herself that way.

"The blue one gets my vote," Carolanne said. "It fits you so perfectly and the color is wonderful with your hair and skin."

"The blue one it is then. You don't think it's…too…much? I mean me in a dress?"

"Kara, you'll be the prettiest one there. Now may I make a suggestion?"

Kara shrugged. "Sure."

"You need a good haircut."

Carolanne managed to get her hairstylist to work Kara in just before lunch. There was a comical moment when he asked Kara who last cut her hair and she said the barber on the _Galactica._ He asked her where Galactica Street was. He'd never heard of it. At lunch forty-five minutes later she and Carolanne had a good laugh about that.

Kara shook her head and felt her hair fall back into place. The stylist hadn't cut much, but he'd shaped it in a way that flattered her face better than the cut she'd gotten on _Galactica_. She also had a small silver purse and some silver high-heeled sandals that Carolanne insisted on buying for her…and a complimentary makeup kit from the stylist. Frak, most of the stuff in it she didn't even know how to use.

Finally Kara asked the question she had wanted to ask Carolanne since the day before. "What do you hear from Lee? Has he been home lately?"

"Yes, he has, about six weeks ago. He took a long weekend and we all went to Henry's little place up on the lake. Henry loves to fish, and Lee…when he and Zak were growing up…Bill never seemed to be here long enough to get into…he never took the boys fishing. Sometimes he would take them out to the base, though, and Lee…Lee would talk about it for weeks. The ships, the pilots, everything. Zak wasn't all that enthusiastic but he went because it was a chance to be with his dad and because Lee was going. It's the first time Lee's been home since…he did come home a few weeks after the funeral and stayed for a week."

"So I guess there's no chance he'll be home this weekend."

"I'm afraid not. Have you not talked to him since the funeral?"

Should she mention the letter? No, there was no good way to explain that if Carolanne started asking questions. "Not talked to him, no. I was hoping maybe this weekend. Guess not, huh?"

"I'm afraid not. Oh, Kara, I wish Zak could see you in that dress."

"That would be nice."

_And Lee, too._ She could almost imagine the look on Lee's face. She owed him that much after wearing her uniform to his senior dance. She wished Lee could see her in the blue dress.

...

Kara was early to the engagement dinner and spent twenty minutes in the bar waiting for Karl, his sister and her fiancé and the rest of the party to show up. When they did, both Karl and Marie looked in the bar, looked right past her. She stood up. First Marie's gaze returned to her and then Karl's.

"Kara?" Both of them said at the same time. She couldn't hear their words due to the noise in the bar, but she could clearly read their lips. And the expressions on their faces were priceless. She laughed. Their reactions had just made what she had spent on the dress worth it.

Marie's friend from work was clearly taken with Karl, hanging on everything he said during the meal. It was very plain to Kara how the night was going to end for him. She was glad. Karl deserved it. And he looked good tonight in his dark gray suit, white shirt and light blue tie. When the dinner was over and everyone was leaving, he stood with his arm around the young woman.

"Marie and Ted and me and Celia here are going down the street a few blocks to a place to listen to some music and dance some. Want to come?"

Kara shook her head. "I'll probably go have a drink in the bar and then go home." She winked at him. "Have a good time."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

The bar had several big television screens above it. Two were turned to sporting events and the one nearest her was on one of the twenty-four hour news stations. The sound was turned off on all the sets, but closed-caption characters scrolled across the bottoms of the screens.

Kara ordered a drink and watched part of a pyramid game and then the news channel caught her attention. The opening of a new resort and casino on Picon. She wasn't sure later why she kept watching, maybe it was the limousine that had just pulled up and the really nice looking older man, dressed in a black dinner jacket who got out first. By the time Lee's former girlfriend got out a few moments later, though, the screen had Kara's complete attention.

The characters scrolled. _The opening of the newest Fortescue Resort Hotel and Casino on Picon. Nicholas Fortescue, his daughter and her escort arrived by limousine for the ceremonial ribbon cutting in the casino as eager patrons line up to enter._

Gianne was dressed in a gorgeous red dress, strapless, long and obviously designer. Her blond hair was put up and as she turned her head to wave at someone off camera, the diamonds in her ears caught the bright lights in pinwheels of brilliance. The third person who got out of the limo, however, was the one who made Kara feel like she had just been punched in the gut. Lee, dressed in a tuxedo and looking like a million cubits, looking like the god Apollo himself, looking so good it made her want to cry. He stepped out behind Gianne who turned, smiled at him and took his arm. The trio proceeded up the red-carpeted steps behind her father and entered the new casino.

For what seemed like forever Kara had trouble getting her breath.

What had she expected? Had he ever promised her anything except friends, starting over as friends? Had she ever had any right to expect more than that? Had her reply to his letter indicated that she wanted anything more than friends? Why did she care that he was with that bitch? That wimpy rich bitch? Why did she care who he was with? Why did she care? She didn't care.

Still the simple act of breathing was taking an extraordinary effort.

"Hey, lady," the bartender said. "Did you hear me?" He had just put another drink in front of her. "Compliments of the guy at the end of the bar."

Kara focused on him. "What?"

"Drink from the guy at the end of the bar."

Kara shook her head. "No thanks." She breathed in deeply, finally. "Where's the nearest phone?"

"You don't have a mobile?"

"No. The phone?"

He motioned for her to come around to the side of the bar where he took a phone out from underneath and put it down. "It only makes local calls."

"This is local. Phone book?"

"Transport is on speed dial. Just press star seven one."

"I don't want a frakking transport. I want a frakking phone book."

The bartender turned and walked away.

"Gods damn it," Kara muttered under her breath. She softened her tone and called after him, "I'd like to borrow your phone book… please." She smiled and put a lot of emphasis on the last word.

He turned around and stood looking at her.

"Pretty please," she said as she took a five-cubit note out of her purse and laid it on the bar.

He took a phone book from under the bar and laid it beside the phone with one hand as he took the money with the other.

"Thanks, asshole," she murmured under her breath. There was nearly a whole page of Connellys, but she found an HM Connelly on Eighteenth Street. She took a chance and punched in the number. She had never called his home before. When she'd gotten in touch with him in the past, she had called his office at the Academy. What would she say if his wife answered? Would she say anything at all, claim it was a wrong number, ask to speak to him, or just hang up?

"Hello."

She recognized his voice. "Would this be the Major Connelly who is acquainted with a certain idiot Viper pilot who once punched out one of her instructors at the Academy?"

"Kara?"

"Well that same idiot is looking for a guy who wants to listen to her tell bullshit pilot stories for about an hour while she has a few drinks. Interested? Or am I going to have to accept a drink from the sleaze-bag at the end of the bar just to get somebody to listen to me?"

"For frak's sake, Kara, where are you?"

"In the bar at a restaurant called Bonnie something."

"Bonnie Patrice?"

"That's the one."

"Wow. You've gone upscale on me. What happened to McGee's?"

"This wasn't my choice. So do I accept the sleaze-bag's drink or not?"

"I'll be there in thirty minutes."

It took him twenty-two.

She moved to a booth, again refused a drink from the guy at the end of the bar who brought it in person this time. She told him she was waiting for someone.

Connelly's expression when he saw her was just as priceless as Karl's and Marie's. Maybe more so.

"Holy sweet Hera," he shook his head in disbelief. She stood up and saw his eyes travel down to her feet in their silver spike-heeled sandals and back up again. "Holy sweet Hera," he repeated.

She knew she was starting to blush. "You said that already," she threw her arms around him and hugged him. It felt good when his arms enfolded her. He smelled like soap and toothpaste and something else. Liquor. He'd already been drinking.

They sat down opposite each other in the booth. He couldn't stop looking at her. Finally he said, "If somebody hasn't already told you tonight how beautiful you are, then I'm telling you now."

"Are you drunk, Connelly?"

"No."

"Then stop talking like one, okay? How'd you manage this? Just tell your wife you were going to meet a friend?"

"I didn't have to tell her anything. She's not here. Her father died a couple of weeks ago. Stacey and our little girl are still on Virgon with her mom. Mom's having a tough time. She's known it was coming for the better part of two years. That doesn't make it any easier though."

"I'm sorry," Kara said. "But I'm not sorry you could meet me. So how have you been?"

He shrugged.

She looked at him. It had been over five years since the night she had met him and he had changed very little. There was a little silver now in the hair at his temples, but otherwise it was still thick and dark, and he was still slim and fit. And still so good-looking she almost looked away. Tonight he was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt with the sleeves rolled up a couple of times. She felt the strong tug of something she knew she shouldn't be feeling. Damn, that just wouldn't go away between them, would it?

"Time for a drink, Major, don't you think?"

Maybe he was feeling the same thing because he answered, "Yeah, time for a drink and those bullshit pilot stories you promised." He smiled. "Why else do you think I'm here? I get tired of Conrad's bullshit sim stories. I want to hear the real thing for a change."

She smiled, too. That was good. Yeah, they were good. They were okay.

Over the course of the next two hours and twice that many drinks she did tell him some stories. She'd never told him the whole story of what had happened on the _Triton_ with Horse and tonight she told him all the details. Connelly grinned and shook his head when she got to the part about breaking Horse's jaw.

She told him about Tripper and how she was afraid she was going to have to tell him to eject, to call in rescue, and watch his career go down as well as his Viper and impact on the surface of the moon. About how the whole thing had gotten her sent back to Caprica as an instructor.

"Do you miss teaching?"

Kara thought for a while. "Maybe, in a way, but right now I'm enjoying being on a battlestar again. Commander Adama is a good guy. His XO and I didn't hit it off, but everything is okay with the Old Man and me. And I got my friend Karl to keep me in line now. At least try to."

"What do you hear from Lee?" Connelly asked casually.

She shrugged. "Nothing much." She sensed that he wanted to ask her something else or maybe say something else. But he didn't.

Connelly let the moment pass and moved on. "So tell me what you're doing in an upscale restaurant bar on Caprica looking like a goddess? In a dress even? Not that I'm complaining."

"Even I have to clean up occasionally to prove to myself that I can." Kara told him about Karl's sister and the engagement party. About Carolanne Adama helping her find the dress, about the haircut.

He told her that Colonel Winters would be retiring at the end of the year. That Colonel Burgher had started talking about doing the same thing in a couple of years. That he had been asked to be Chair of the History Department. It would mean more administrative work, less teaching and that he was still thinking about it.

Finally Kara said, "Well, I asked for an hour of your time and it's been more than two. For another five cubits the asshole bartender will probably let me use the phone to call a transport. It's on speed dial." She giggled. She didn't know why that was suddenly so funny.

"I'll take you home, Kara. You don't need to do that."

"I don't know, Connelly. You might not want to take your car into my part of town."

"I'll take my chances. Come on." When they got near her apartment building though, he said, "Holy shit, you weren't kidding."

"Told you," she said.

He insisted on walking her to the door. "I wouldn't worry if you were armed, but I don't think you've got a weapon hidden on you tonight, not the way that dress fits."

"Thanks for tonight, for coming out and listening to me. I'd ask you to come in for a while, but it's a mess right now…and the electricity's off. I have trouble remembering to pay the bill. It's probably not a good idea anyway, you coming in."

"Yeah, probably not," he said and she picked up a strange tone in his voice, like he was already putting distance between them. "Yeah, probably not," he said again.

"Something on your mind?"

He seemed to be struggling with whether or not to say what he was thinking. Finally he said, "Gods damn it. I swore I wasn't going to say anything, that I was just going to let it go, but I can't. I know why you called me tonight, Kara. I was watching the news, too. I saw Lee with the blond in the red dress. I know what that probably did to you. I knew it wasn't me you wanted to be with. But you call, and like the fool that I am, I come running. And I walk in and see you looking so damned beautiful that I get weak in the knees. So no, Kara, it's probably not a good idea if I come in for a while."

What had she done? She hadn't wanted to be alone. She hadn't even thought about what she was doing to Connelly. It never occurred to her that he might have seen the news clip and realized why she had called him. Frak, oh frak.

She put her arms around him, pressed her head against his shoulder and turned her face toward his neck. She was shivering now and not just from the coolness of the night. "I'm so sorry. Connelly, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…I never meant to…I would never do anything to hurt you…I care…you're my friend."

For a few seconds he stood unmoving with his hands still jammed in his pockets. Then he spoke, and she heard the pain, or maybe he was just angry, whether with her or himself she had no way of knowing.

"But Lee is more than your friend, isn't he? You and Lee…he's the one got your heart, right? I know I've got no right to expect…still…damn, it doesn't make it any easier to handle, and I'm sorry, I know I'm doing a really lousy job of handling it right now."

"Lee's got nothing to do with this."

"Doesn't he? Don't be naïve, Kara. And don't ever call me like this again. I won't come."

They both knew he was lying, but they both also knew that by his saying it, she never would.

"And now, Kara, don't say anything else. Neither one of us should say anything else. I've already said way too frakking much already."

Even as he was saying the words, though, he took his hands out of his pockets and brought his arms up around her. He pulled her so tightly against him that she could feel his heart beating in rhythm with her own, the fast staccato beats of emotions running high, of anger and desire. The desire that would never go away between them, the desire they were still struggling to handle.

They stood that way for a long time, neither willing to take the next step, to either end the embrace or take it further. He finally made the decision for them. He half pushed, half pulled her inside the door and kicked it shut. Then he pressed her back against it, and his mouth when it found hers in the dark was hot…and hungry.

That night he did what no one else had ever been able to do. For a short time Connelly wiped Lee Adama from her mind, made her forget how much seeing Lee with Gianne had hurt, made her forget that despite everything Lee still had her heart. For an hour or maybe two Connelly did what she wanted him to, wiped it all away with the strength of his anger…and his pain…and his love.

While she always remembered her night with Lee as soft silver moonlight and giving up her heart, of complete surrender and finally admitting her love for him, she would remember this night with Connelly the way she would remember a star going nova in the night sky, their passion finally burning itself out in each other's arms in a wild, white-hot and final beauty.

The next morning the blue dress on the floor made her think of a puddle of tears. She looked at the ring on her thumb and knew she could add another man to those it reminded her of, another man who loved her. Another man she loved…and had lost.

TBC…


	42. Message From the Galactica

Chapter 42

Message from the _Galactica_

Lee sat on the private terrace of a private suite at the Fortescue Resort Hotel on Picon, a private suite that probably cost more for one night than he earned in a month, a private suite that he and Gianne had occupied for the last two nights. It wasn't quite dawn on Sunday morning, and he had been sitting out there for the better part of an hour now. Sitting in the predawn chill thinking.

It had been a mistake to accept the invitation. Even though he'd planned to tell Gianne that this didn't mean they were back together, he'd never gotten a chance to be alone with her until late Friday night, and by then they'd both had too much champagne to drink and things had ended up, well, they'd ended up exactly like she'd probably planned it, but he hadn't tried to stop it either.

And that had been a mistake, because Gianne had assumed from that point that they were a couple again. And she _had_ looked beautiful last night at the casino's opening. The red dress, the glamour, the looks she had kept giving him, the adoration, the love, it was all really flattering.

There was really only one thing wrong. She wasn't Kara. She wasn't Kara and she never would be. But what if it had been Kara with him? They would probably have ended up in a big frakking fight. Who cared what about? They would have found something. And the way she'd replied to his letter. What did it mean other than she just wanted to be friends?

What should he do? Give this thing with Gianne another try? She loved him, had told him so last night while they had again dramk too much champagne. Saturday night had been a repeat of Friday night. But how do you tell one woman that there's only one thing wrong with her, that she was not somebody else?

Frak, what the hell should he do? He wanted to go and quietly pack his bag, get back to the air base, get a room at the officer's club and wait until the transport left the next morning to go back to the _Atlantia._ No, as much as he wanted to, he'd made that mistake before, the mistake of leaving instead of staying and facing Kara after Zak's funeral, and he wasn't going to run out on a tough situation again. He was still paying for that mistake.

He'd just have to tell Gianne that he couldn't promise her anything. He'd just have to leave his options open. It would be easier when he got back on the _Atlantia._ Easier once he could get some distance from this weekend. Easier when he was out in his Viper in the vacuum of space where he was surrounded by stars. Everything was a lot clearer out there where he felt closer to Kara, as close as he was going to get right now anyway.

"How long have you been out here?"

He turned in the chair and looked over her shoulder. Gianne in some kind of silky-looking robe. "Good morning."

"Lords of Kobol, Lee, come back inside. It's too damn cold out here. How can you stand it?"

"I couldn't sleep," he said.

"After last night? I'm insulted."

"Gi, it's not you. It's me."

"Something you want to talk about?"

He shook his head.

"Should I order breakfast?"

"Yeah, that would be a good idea."

She went back inside for a few minutes and then came back and stood in the doorway again. "Is it what happened this weekend?"

Lee got up and turned around. "Let's go back inside and talk."

He told her then that he couldn't make her any promises, that the life of a Viper pilot didn't lend itself to relationships, that it wouldn't be easy, that there were a hundred reasons it probably wouldn't work.

The only thing he didn't tell her was the biggest reason of all, the only one that really mattered. He loved somebody else. Somebody he'd done something very wrong to, somebody who would now only agree to be his friend, which is probably more than he deserved. And friends was probably all he and Kara would ever be now.

Gianne listened to him and to his surprise she agreed with him. They had a lot of history, not all of it good. It probably wouldn't work, but she was willing to try. That's all she was asking. See each other when they could work it out. See what happened.

That's the way they left things. The limousine dropped him at the Picon Air Base late that afternoon before it took Gianne back to the Space Terminal where one of her father's private transports was waiting to take her back to Caprica.

Lee found that he didn't have to wait until the next morning. There was a cargo transport leaving for the _Atlantia_ at 19:00 that evening. He was able to switch from the Monday morning transport to it.

He got a good jump seat and watched the final cargo being loaded. A youngish looking guy, a civilian from dress in jeans and a sweater, was arguing with the ship's Load Master. Lee picked up bits of the conversation.

"…expensive computer equipment…not a good place…if something shifts…better be secured…"

"Chill out, mister…been doing this a long time…not the only fragile cargo being loaded…go have a seat…let us do our job…"

The guy pushed his glasses up on his nose several times during the conversation and Lee could tell he was getting frustrated. He finally came over and took a jump seat several away from Lee.

He was still mumbling to himself, "Frakking idiots. There'll be hell to pay if it arrives on the _Atlantia_ in pieces. I'll have somebody's ass."

Lee looked over at him. Who did this kid remind him of? "Hey, look, I know it probably doesn't look like it, but these guys know what they're doing. Somewhere in there are a couple of cases of booze for the Commander of the _Atlantia._ They know how to handle fragile cargo. I'm Lee Adama by the way."

"Jared Daniels. That's some damned valuable equipment. Not easily replaced. I'm responsible for it."

"What's it for?"

"We're starting to network the _Atlantia's _computer systems into the Defense Mainframes on Caprica and Picon. I was on the _Solaria _with the rest of my team working on upgrading Viper software when I get a message from my boss late Thursday to come back to Picon, get this equipment setup, go on to the _Atlantia _and let my team finish up on the _Solaria_. It ruined my whole frakking weekend."

"Ruined a weekend on a battlestar. That's pretty good. What were you doing? Hooking up with a hot pilot or something?"

"The weekend was on Gemenon. A friend and I had courtside tickets to the pyramid semi-finals. The Gemenon Grenadiers and the Caprica Buccaneers. So yeah, it ruined my frakking weekend. Having to come back to Picon and put together a whole new set of equipment. Nobody could even tell me what the big frakking hurry is anyway. Probably some bureaucratic asshole on Caprica decides we're not moving fast enough. Not getting to all the battlestars fast enough. So I've got to be on the _Atlantia_ tomorrow where I'll get a brand new crew on Tuesday that I'll have to frakking train before they're any frakking good to me."

"Okay, okay, you've convinced me. It ruined your frakking weekend." Lee grinned.

Jared smiled. "Sorry, I didn't mean to unload on you like that. Hey, are you any kin to Commander Adama on the _Galactica_?"

Lee's smile faded. "My father. You've been on the _Galactica_ already?"

"Until about a month ago. We were there nearly two months. I met your dad. Nice man." Jared leaned over and stuck out his hand across the two seats that separated them. "I'm Jared Daniels. Or did I say that already? Anyway, nice to meet you."

Lee leaned over and they shook hands.

"Zak was your brother, then?"

Lee gave him a questioning look. "How did you know about Zak?"

Jared shrugged, hesitated. "Uh, must have heard it mentioned while I was on the _Galactica_. You got friends on the _Galactica_?"

"I guess you could say that. I guess you could say I've got a _friend _or maybe two on the _Galactica_."

"Strap in," the Load Master shouted across the cargo hold. We're cleared to start takeoff prep in five minutes."

The cargo ship's engines began revving shortly after that, and for the two-hour trip to the _Atlantia_, neither one of them tried to sustain a conversation. Lee noticed that Jared had several computer and game magazines, but for most of the trip he sat with his head back against the seat, awake, but maybe daydreaming, maybe planning what he was going to do on the _Atlantia_, maybe thinking about the pyramid game he had missed.

Or were Jared's thoughts somewhere else like his own? Were Jared's thoughts with someone special? Right now Lee's were out among the stars in the cockpit of a Viper with a pilot who one night had whispered through her tears to him, _It's always been about us_, and who now said she was okay with what had happened, but that she could only handle being his friend.

...

On Monday Lee made himself wait until after he'd done his duty rotation, until after he'd showered and eaten a light dinner in the officer's mess before he went down to the Comm Center and filled out the form to make a ship-to-ship call. He took it to the window, pushed it across to the ensign, answered the usual questions.

He saw the ensign frown when he got to the name of the person he was calling. "Sir, I just put through a call to Lieutenant Kara Thrace on the _Galactica_. She's on the line right now. You'll have to wait."

"Are you sure? Who called her?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't say."

Lee turned and looked at the bank of phones on the wall. From where he was standing the partitions hid the people who were talking from the waist up, but Lee could see all the legs. They were all in some sort of uniform except the person on the phone at the far end of the row. Lee saw jeans.

He turned back to the ensign. "Would Lieutenant Thrace be talking to the person at the first phone?"

"Sir, I can't say."

"Look, you don't have to say anything. If she's on that phone, just take that form and mark it that I changed my mind and put it wherever you put it."

Lee saw the ensign check "Caller Cancelled" on the form and put it in a box marked "Not Completed." He turned and walked down the row of phones. The computer guy Jared Daniels was at the first phone.

Jared looked up when Lee approached and stopped talking.

"Tell Kara that Lee Adama says 'hello'," Lee said as he walked past.

He was sitting in the officer's rec room holding his thrid drink when Jared came in about an hour later. Jared's hair was still damp and he had changed from the jeans and blue work shirt he'd had on earlier. He was now wearing sweat pants and a sweatshirt with Caprica U emblazoned on the front and some other smaller insignia.

"Get a drink and pull up a chair," Lee said.

As Jared stood waiting to get a beer, Lee suddenly realized who Jared reminded him of. Zak, a blue-eyed Zak, the angle of his jaw, the way he moved his head. Maybe the glasses had thrown him off. He couldn't believe he'd never seen it before. Damn, the resemblance in profile was uncanny.

Jared brought his beer back to the table. Neither said much until they were the only ones left sitting there.

"What's the emblem on the sweatshirt?"

"Math honor society at the U."

Lee nodded. "How long have you been out of school? A year?"

"Try six, soon to be seven." Jared turned up the beer.

"No frakking way. You look about sixteen."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Twenty-seven going on seventeen."

"So how's Kara?"

"She's fine. How'd you know I was talking to her?"

Lee turned up his glass and drained it. He knew he was a two drinks past where he should have stopped. "Lucky guess. What's she up to these days?"

"She was back on Caprica this past weekend. Karl Agathon's sister had some sort of engagement dinner. Kara said to tell you that you look really good in a tux. I don't know what that means, but I said I'd tell you."

Oh, frak. Lee never dreamed Kara would have seen the news clip. Never dreamed she'd have been on Caprica. He'd seen the replay late Saturday evening. It was barely twenty seconds long, but no telling how many times it had been replayed.

"She said to tell you one more thing. Again, I'm just the messenger. I don't have a clue what it means. She said to tell you Connors sends his regards, just like he did that night at McGee's. She said you'd know exactly what she meant."

"You mean Connelly?" Lee asked.

"Yeah, that's it. Connelly." He turned up the beer again.

In that moment as the arrow went through his heart, before he actually felt the pain, Lee knew exactly what Kara was telling him. Gods damn it. Connelly had gotten his one more night with her. What had happened first, her seeing the news clip or her sleeping with Connelly? He thought he probably knew. His own fault, his own frakking fault. The pain hit him. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

"You okay, Adama?"

"Never better. How long have you known Kara?"

"A couple of years. I met her on the _Triton_ when I was working on networking their systems."

"Did you start doing her then or did that not happen until you were on the _Galatica_?"

"What?"

"I'm just curiou. How long have you been sleeping with her?"

"That's a big presumption on your part."

"Tell me I'm wrong, then."

"You don't seriously think I'm going to discuss that with you, do you?"

"Right," Lee said. "It started on the _Triton,_ didn't it?"

"Look, I don't know what your problem is but…"

"I'll tell you what my problem is, my problem is you, you and Kara."

"And just how is that any of your frakking business?"

"She was engaged to my brother."

"Not while we were on the _Triton_, she wasn't, and he's gone now. If Kara is okay with that, I don't see what right you have getting involved in it."

"You know something, one of us should get up and walk away right now." Lee remained seated, looking at the empty glass he was turning slowly in his hand.

Jared finally shrugged. "Fine, I'll be happy to be the one." He stood up. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say the problem is not me and Kara. It's you and Kara."

Lee didn't look up at him. He was dangerously close to doing something really stupid. "Walk away while you're able," was all he said. When he trusted himself enough to look up half a minute later, Jared was gone.

He bet that Kara was regretting saying they could be friends now. He bet that if he wrote another letter or called her she'd take back even the offer of friendship. He thought he'd frakked up when he walked out on her the morning after Zak's funeral. He'd just invented a whole new level of frakking up with Kara.

TBC…


	43. Truce

Chapter 43

Truce

Karl shuffled the triad cards. He was sitting at a table with Kara waiting for a few more pilots to arrive and start a game. Kara was turning cards over, looking at them without really seeing them. Neither had spoken for quite a while.

Finally Karl said, "You've just been too damned quiet lately, Kara. What's up with you these days?"

"Nothing."

"Come on. For the last month you've been acting weird. Ever since we got back from Caprica."

"Define weird."

"I don't know. Spending a lot of time alone. Being too quiet. What's wrong?"

Kara rolled her eyes. "Why does something have to be wrong for me to act weird? I've been acting weird all my life. You know that."

"It's not what happened after Marie's engagement dinner, is it?"

Kara looked up at him. There was absolutely no way he could know anything. "What are you talking about?"

"Us going dancing and leaving you there at the restaurant."

"Don't be stupid, Karl. I told you to go ahead. Why do you think that would bother me?"

"I don't know. I'm just saying you've been a lot quieter since we got back from Caprica. Did something happen that night? Something I don't know about?"

Kara shrugged.

"What did you do after we left?"

"Went into the bar, had a couple of drinks, picked up a hot guy, took him back to my place and frakked him silly." She rubbed her index finger over the ring on her thumb. "Best lay I've had since...since a long time."

Karl grimaced. "Sorry I asked."

"Yeah, well you did ask and I just told you. So, can we drop this, okay? I'm fine. I'm good. In fact, I think I'm going to hit my rack early tonight and see if I can sleep it off."

"Sleep what off?"

"Acting weird." She grinned at him and patted his shoulder as she walked past him. "So your money is safe for tonight. I won't be taking it in a triad game."

She went back to the pilot's quarters, stripped down to her tank top and underwear and started to crawl into her rack. Before she did, though, she opened her locker, took the folded picture of her and Zak from the mirror and unfolded it. What would she give to be able to turn back the clock to that day, the day of the ball game? How many things would she do differently if she had that chance? She looked at Lee for a long time before she refolded the picture and stuck it back on the mirror.

She lay down. She had to do something to start making amends, to get over whatever this was that was keeping her down, making her 'act weird' as Karl had put it. She quickly got back up, put on a pair of sweat pants, zipped a hooded sweatshirt over her tanks and went down to the ship's store. She got there just as the corporal behind the counter was starting to close.

"I need something to write a letter on. What you got?"

"Five-pack, letters and envelopes. Ten-pack. Paper only,envelopes only. Pretty much whatever you might want."

"I'll take the five-pack." Yeah the five-pack should do it.

She didn't have any money on her so he took her name and serial number off her tags and told her it would come out of her paycheck. She signed the form and took her five-pack of stationary and envelopes back to the pilot's quarters.

Where to start? Connelly? That was a good place to start. She sat at the table for a long time trying to form her thoughts and decide what she should say to him. Finally she realized there was only one thing she needed to say, one thing she needed to ask. She wrote.

_Connelly, I'm sorry. Forgive me? K._

She folded the page, put it in an envelope and addressed it to him at the Academy. Then she took the envelope down to the Comm Center, dropped it in the outgoing mail slot. She filled out the form to make a ship-to-ship call and stood in line for nearly half an hour to get to the window.

She had talked to Jared only twice since she'd gotten back to the _Galactica_ from Caprica. In the second phone call he told her he didn't appreciate her putting him in the middle of _'some sick little thing'_ she had going on with her dead fiancé's brother. That it pissed him off to be made her _'messenger boy'_. There hadn't been anything to say after that. In fact she remembered him hanging up at that point.

It took Jared nearly five minutes to pick up. When he did he sounded short and impatient, like he had been really busy with something and didn't appreciate being interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Hi."

A long moment of silence and a deep breath. "Hello, Kara."

"I won't keep you. I just want to say I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to deliver any kind of message to Lee Adama. I should have done it myself. So, I'm sorry I got you involved. Me and Lee, we go back a long way. It's complicated."

Another long silence. "All right. I'm not going to pretend I understand, but all right. How are you?"

"Getting there. So we're okay, you and me?"

"Yeah, Kara, we're okay. I never had any illusions about what I was to you. So, we're okay."

"Take care, Jared. You're a nice guy."

"Yeah, you too. Stay safe out there."

"Call me sometime?"

"Sure."

He probably wouldn't, but that was all right. They were okay now. She headed to the officer's rec room. Hopefully that triad game was going on by now. She suddenly felt like getting into a game. So Karl would just have to deal with it when she took his money.

She still had to do something about Lee, but she wanted to think about that some more. She didn't want to make any more mistakes with him, any more screw-ups. And that might be hard not to do since screwing up was a special skill of hers.

...

Almost two weeks later she checked her mail and there was a reply from Connelly. She took it out into the hall and tore the envelope open.

_Kara, I wrote a page of nonsense before I realized you'd just asked me one question. So to answer, you were forgiven long before you asked. Always. C._

She leaned back against the wall and breathed deeply and again felt the tug of something she knew she shouldn't be feeling for a man who could never be hers without taking him away from his family, away from the little girl he loved more than anything in the world. Kara thought of what it had done to her to lose her own father. According to her mother she threw him out because he cheated. No, she could never, ever do that to Connelly's little girl. Little girls needed to grow up with a father who was there for them, who loved them and kept them safe from pain, who told them bedtime stories and sang them lullabies.

As much as it hurt, she was going to have to let this thing with Connelly go. She looked at the ring, rubbed her finger across its smooth surface. He forgave her and she was going to have to let it go now. Let him go.

That left Lee. Making amends with Lee. He was back with his ex-girlfriend now. So that meant there probably wasn't much hope there would ever be anything between her and Lee again except friendship. But she'd take that over where they stood right now. There was no way she could move on with her life with things the way they were right now.

She should probably call him, but once words were spoken they couldn't be taken back. If she said the wrong thing or he did, it would just make matters worse. But she had to do something.

Late that night she took another page of letter paper and wrote the only word she thought would mean anything for them right now, that Lee with his background in military history whould really understand.

_Truce? K._

Another two weeks and she got a reply. He had taken her letter and written underneath her line.

_Truce. Lee_

She felt tears sting her eyes and looked up at the ceiling until she could control them. Finally she smiled. He'd answered. She was okay for now. They were still friends. Maybe in the future their lives would come together again. Maybe…and that gave her hope. For months there had been no hope and now there was a spark of hope. She folded the letter, folded her hope into it, and put it in her flight suit with his other letter, put it in the inner pocket over her heart.

...

The morning after his near run-in with Jared Daniels, Lee woke up with a slight hangover. It went away in the shower, but he still felt really bad about what he had done. He had taken something out on a guy who'd had the bad luck to get caught unaware in this latest little war he and Kara were waging. Frak, when it came to Kara, he could do some really stupid things.

A few days later after not seeing Jared around anywhere, Lee went looking for him. He found him sitting on the floor in the Central Communications Room with a laptop computer hooked up to one of the comm servers.

"I came to apologize."

Jared looked up at him for a moment, put the laptop on the floor and stood up.

Lee held out his hand. "I'm sorry. I was way out of line."

Jared brushed his palm against his jeans, took Lee's hand and they shook. "I called Kara and told her I didn't appreciate being made her messenger boy. That's not my style, man, to get in the middle of anything. You and Kara, not my business. Me and Kara, not yours."

"You're right."

"Look, I'm busy right now. I got some diagnostics running I need to watch."

"Sure." Lee nodded, turned and left. He'd done what he came to do. If only making amends with Kara could be that easy.

Did he want to do that right now, though? He was having a lot of trouble with the knowledge that Kara had gone to the _Galactica _and had immediately resumed the thing she and Jared had when they were on the _Triton_. It was like what had happened between them that night after Zak's funeral had meant nothing to her. But was that being fair to Kara? Hadn't he done the same thing with Gianne? Slept with her wishing she were Kara.

Frak, he didn't know what to do right now. He'd already gotten a letter from Gianne thanking him for the weekend on Picon and letting him know she really wanted to see him again. What chance was there for him and Kara right now, anyway? He decided to answer Gianne's letter and tell her they would get together on his next leave.

He was fine with his decision until he got the one-word letter from Kara. She couldn't have done anything that got to him more than that one-word question. _Truce?_ So it had bothered her, too. Bothered her enough that she had taken the first step to patching things up with them. Back to where they were before. But where was that? Friends? That's all she'd promised when she had replied to his letter. But friends was better than where they were now. He'd take friends for now. He picked up his pen. Answered her on her own letter, signed it and sent it back to her.

_Truce._

TBC…


	44. War College

Chapter 44

War College

"Lieutenant Adama, please remain behind for a few minutes."

Lee had just started toward the exit of the squadron ready room and now returned down front as his CAG had asked.

"Congratulations, Lieutenant, your application to the War College on Picon has been processed. You'll start in the mid-October class exactly one month from now."

Mid-October. Zak would be gone a year in mid-October. A year since he'd seen Kara or spoken to her, but their truce was still holding.

"I thought it would have happened before now, but better late than never, I guess."

"Just look at it this way Lee. They saved the best for the last starting class of the year."

Lee finally smiled. "When do I leave?"

"Two weeks. It'll give you time to get settled on Picon before classes start. I'd like to add that it's been a pleasure having you serve on the _Atlantia_ these last five years. If you decide to come back to a battlestar after you graduate War College, I hope it will be ours."

"It's the newest and best. Why would I want to go anywhere else?"

...

He and Gianne did fine for the first six months that he was on Picon at the War College. She started coming to Picon every other weekend and then after a few months, every weekend. He pushed his feelings for Kara deep into his heart, knew that they were not possible now anyway, but he could never let go of them, never let go of the hope that they would be together again one day.

Most of the time he enjoyed the time he spent with Gianne. She was usually undemanding, loving, much more understanding than she was when he was at the Academy. She cooked for him, made the weekends nice and domestic. He got caught up in the idea of one day having something like this to come home to.

But something was still missing for him. The ability to take that final step and give his heart to her, the thing he had done with Kara without any hesitation the night of Zak's funeral. And maybe that's why he couldn't do it now with Gianne. He'd already given his heart to Kara. It wasn't there for him to give to anyone else.

His inability to commit completely to the relationship was the one thing Gianne couldn't get past. And how could he really blame her? It sent her back to Caprica early and in tears on several weekends, vowing she wasn't coming back, vowing that they were over as a couple. But every time she did come back, did make that effort and things would be fine…for a few weeks.

Finally she gave him an ultimatum. She was ready to end things and not come back. He couldn't take the emotional roller coaster any longer. Even knowing it was a mistake, he gave in and gave her a ring. It wasn't large, nothing like the one she had before, but she was ecstatic. Things were good for them again. He was able to concentrate on his studies at War College. He began to believe they might make it.

He believed it until the night they attended a concert in Picon City and he heard the song.

A group that Gianne had loved for years, _Beggars and Choosers, _was playing its first concert of the season, and she had gotten box seat tickets. The group had been really popular when he was in high school and his first few years at the Academy. Maybe that's why he already had Kara on his mind. Twice he thought he saw her come in with someone. Both times he was wrong. It was just another blond woman her size and height.

Maybe he would have been all right even then, but at the end of the concert, the lead male vocalist stepped up to his microphone and raised both hands for silence. "Thank you all. You've been a great audience. We want to close tonight with a song that is not one of ours, but is very special to me. It's a song my father wrote for my mother a long time ago. Today is their fortieth wedding anniversary. So Mum and Dad this is for you. _Every Time My Heart Beats_."

The lead male and female vocalists sang the song as a duet, their voices harmonizing perfectly, each taking a solo verse and singing the chorus together. The band played it with more guitar and drums and a little faster tempo, but it was still the same beautiful love song he had danced to with Kara.

Before the song was over, Lee knew he and Gianne were never going to make it, knew that he was never going to get over his feelings for Kara, knew that he was only wasting his and Gianne's time.

The final words of the song hit him like a blow, took his breath and left him feeling like he'd just been shot through the chest.

_Hearts beating together…always yours and mine…forever across the stars…forever across time._

At the end of the song, the band kept playing and the two lead vocalists stepped away from their microphones. He held out his hand to her and she took it and they began to dance slowly on the stage, getting closer to each other as the band finally finished the song. The audience went wild.

Gianne couldn't stop talking about it even after they were back at the small, furnished apartment he was renting near the Academy on Picon. "That is so romantic, don't you think, so…so romantic. The way they end the concert. They do it so well you'd think they were in love with each other."

"What do you mean _think_ they were in love with each other?" Lee asked in surprise.

"They're both married to other people. It's part of the act. They end it that way every time to a slow song. It's usually one of theirs, but that song tonight, that was beautiful, so romantic."

"No, there's something there, something between them. It's just…you can't fake something like that. I saw his face on the big screen while he was singing to her, while they were dancing. He's in love with her."

"No, he's not. They just sing together."

"I don't believe that was just singing for them."

"Why? Tell me, Lee, why do you think that?"

"I don't know. Some things you just can't fake. When they were singing the song, they were singing to each other. I could see it in their faces. The feeling was so clear."

"You're totally imaging it, Lee. They've been doing this for years. They were singing to the audience."

"No, they weren't. He loves her. You might as well quit arguing with me. You're not going to change my mind. He loves her."

"All right, all right. Lords of Kobol, Lee, I've never known you to get so worked up over something so stupid and silly."

"Love isn't stupid or silly, Gianne."

"I'm not talking about love. I'm talking about arguing over something as stupid as whether or not two singers were faking feelings to make a concert better. That's what I'm talking about."

Lee turned around and jammed his hands into his pockets in frustration.

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," Gianne said. "This isn't about the band. There's something else going on here, isn't there?"

He kept his back turned to her and shook his head. "You're right, Gianne. It was a stupid thing to argue about. Forget it."

"No. What is it? What's wrong?"

"I don't know, Gi, I don't know."

"Is it us? Is that what this is all about? Are you picking a fight with me because you're getting cold feet about us?"

"I don't know what I'm getting. I'm tired. I've had a long week. Let's just forget this stupid argument, okay?"

She let it go then, but something changed between them after that night. She began to cling a little more. He began to distance himself a little more.

He graduated from War College at the top of his class and was promoted to Captain. He decided to go back to the _Atlantia_ instead of accepting an assignment in Strategic Command on Picon. He never even told Gianne that he had a choice.

Just before he left, he spent his last weekend on Caprica. He saw his mother and Henry. On the last day before he headed back to the _Atlantia_, he and Gianne were on their way to eat lunch, walking across the upper level of the Plaza when she dropped the bombshell. She was pregnant. He shouldn't have been as surprised as he was. He should have seen it coming. He should have, but didn't.

When she told him, the only thing he could think of to say was, "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. You aren't happy. I can tell you aren't happy."

"It's just that this is…unexpected…I didn't think…I don't want to start a marriage this way…we can't…I wasn't expecting this."

It finally came out. What he should have told her the night of the concert, the part she finally guessed, maybe had known all along.

"It's her, isn't it? It's Kara. You've still got a thing for her after all this time. You're still in love with her."

"Gi, don't. This isn't getting us anywhere."

"You probably think I just did this to trap you. Make you marry me. Admit it. Tell me the truth for once."

He didn't answer because he couldn't think of any nice way to tell her she was right.

She was already crying as she put her hand over her abdomen. "You don't want this baby or me either. You just want her. I was never more than good times and sex to you, was I?"

"Gianne…"

She turned and ran from him, down the steps, down to the lower Plaza below. And he let her go. He could have run after her, stopped her and told her that they would get married. He could have sacrificed his happiness to do the right thing. There were times later he despised himself for not ending things sooner with Gianne before it got this far. But since he hadn't, he knew he should have surrendered his last hope of ever being with Kara again.

But he didn't.

TBC…


	45. Top Gun

Chapter 45

Top Gun

During the time that Lee was attending War College on Picon, Kara was establishing her niche on the _Galactica_. Six months after she arrived, her main competitor for _Galactica's_ Top Gun got married and transferred to the air base on Gemenon. She held the title undisputed after that.

Just like on the _Triton_ she found herself drinking more than she did when she was teaching on Caprica and playing cards more often. The arrogance of being the best Viper pilot crept into the way she dealt with a lot of things. But one thing she was careful not to do was let anyone get close to her. She and Karl maintained their friendship, but other than him, she didn't make an effort to get close to anyone else.

She completely avoided any kind of romantic attachment.

Every three or four months Commander Adama asked her to have dinner with him. They talked about what was going on in the ship, about flying Vipers, and ultimately they talked about Zak…and Lee. The Commander would often reminisce about his sons when they were growing up, and that usually meant both of them. Reading between the lines from several of their conversations, she decided that the Old Man felt guilty about how little time he'd spent with them when they were young.

Sometimes he would talk about the accident. He'd finally seen the official report and knew it was classified as _Pilot Error_. Kara didn't need an official report to tell her what she already knew. Zak had no business in the cockpit of a Viper. He wouldn't have been there if she had washed him out on his last checkride like she should have done.

It was agonizing for her to listen to the Commander talk about how he shouldn't have pushed the military as the only career choice for his sons. About how in the end it had cost him both of them.

She had trouble looking at him during that part of the conversation.

He always ended their evening by saying to her, "Thank you for joining me for dinner, Kara. We'll do it again sometime." And in three or four months they would.

Her relationship with the XO, Colonel Tigh, got no better. It had actually gotten worse. Several times he had the alcohol-induced bad judgment to bet too heavily on a losing hand of triad, and she'd taken his cubits too smugly. Because he was a superior officer, it was the only way she could get back at him for the steady stream of barbed comments he sent her way.

That is until she found out about his wife. Oh, that was rich. One day she knew he would push her too far and she would spear him with a comment about his promiscuous wife. From the moment she found out about Ellen Tigh's infidelities, she waited for the perfect opportunity.

To her surprise Jared called her seven months after she'd called him to apologize. He was back on Picon by then, having finished his work on the _Atlantia _and following that the _Columbia_. He was working for the Defense Department integrating some new software into their mainframe systems.

The first time he called he was getting ready to take some time off. His boss had rewarded his hard work during the last year with an all-expense paid week at a small resort on Picon's South Bay. Jared wanted her to join him. She did. It felt good to get away from it all, wear a bikini, swim in the ocean, feel the sun on her face, relax and drink and have an uncomplicated physical relationship with a guy she liked a lot but didn't love.

Although Jared talked several times about his stint on the _Atlantia_, he never talked about Lee and she never asked.

One time he started telling her about his work on the mainframes, about how he had some doubts about what the new software was for, but she stopped him. When he began speaking about routing messages and packets and firewalls, his language was beyond her comprehension.

She told him that his mouth could do better things than speak geek to her. Being the smart guy that he was, he quickly got her message. He was more than happy to show her how well he understood it.

They talked occasionally after that, and she saw him again eight months later under similar circumstances. His boss had given him a week at the same resort. It was a lot cheaper, Jared told her, than paying him extra for the sixty and seventy-hour weeks he usually put in.

She finally asked him why he called her. Surely there was some girl he knew who would be glad to come on a trip like this with him. His answer didn't really surprise her.

Yes, but he worked so much that the only women he knew were the ones he worked with._ She understood that._ It just didn't pay to get involved with someone at work. _She understood that, too._ It unnecessarily complicated things. _She agreed completely._

"Besides," he said sheepishly, "you look a hell of a lot better in a bikini that any of the other women I know."

"Hey, what are you trying to do?" She grinned at him. "You think I'm going to sleep with you just because you flatter me?"

He blushed. "A geek like me can hope, can't he?" He was twenty-eight, but he still looked like a kid when he smiled at her.

There was only one part of the whole week that was difficult for her. After dinner on the last night they had gone to the outdoor bar, a thatched hut with the pool on one side and the beach on the other. They had several drinks and danced to a steel-drum band. Toward the end of a slow number as her body was pressed against his, she whispered in his ear at the same time he did the same to her. _Room._

They were both laughing as he took her hand and they left the dance floor together. Yeah, she had to get this while she could. There was no telling how long it would be until the next time.

An hour or so later, he was sleeping and she took the remote control and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels she found a concert being broadcast live on one of the music stations…a group that she remembered from her high school days, _Beggars and Choosers_. She left it there, leaned back against the pillows and listened to songs she had first heard when life was much less complicated for her than it was now.

She was starting to doze when she heard the song. She opened her eyes. The male and female lead vocalists were singing to each other, the camera close on their faces, their voices blending perfectly.

_Every time my heart beats…You must hear it saying…Just how much I want you…Just how much I care._

Kara was completely unprepared for the rush of emotion. Damn, oh damn.

She was back at the Academy in Lee's arms, dancing with him, kissing him, wanting him. She closed her eyes for a moment in an attempt to control the pain. When she opened them, the singers were dancing just like she and Lee had done, closer and closer. Damn, oh damn.

The song ended. The two singers were still holding hands and everyone in the audience was on their feet, clapping and whistling and shouting. The rest of the band bowed, the vocalists did the same. He raised their clasped hands for a moment and then brought her hand to his lips and kissed the top of her knuckles. Damn, oh damn.

Kara turned off the television and got out of bed. She took one of the fluffy complimentary robes from the back of a chair and quietly opened the sliding glass door that led onto the small patio facing the beach. She sat down in one of the chairs at the glass-topped table and watched the moon rise, watched it slowly turn the ocean and the sand to silver.

Some emotions were beyond words, beyond even tears.

Sometime later she heard the door behind her slide open. Jared put his hands on top of her shoulders and gently massaged them for a moment.

"I'm sorry I can't be him."

"Who?"

"Whichever one you want to be with now, the dead one or his brother. I don't guess it really matters, does it?"

"Jared…"

"No, Kara. It's okay. I knew from the beginning what this is to you. It's okay. Really. You never lied to me, never tried to make it more than it is. I'm grateful for any time I get to spend with you. Anything else is my problem to deal with."

She breathed slowly in and out, eyes dry, wanting to say something to him but unable to find any words.

"You want to be alone, don't you?"

She nodded and a few seconds later heard the door glide closed behind her.

On her way back to the _Galactica_ the next day, she rubbed the ring on her thumb and wondered if she would ever hear from him again.

.

She and Karl went back to Caprica for Marie's wedding since they were both in it. Karl was a groomsman and got to wear a tuxedo that looked great on him. She was a bridesmaid and had to wear a strapless pink dress that made her feel practically naked.

Over the three days they were there, she stopped herself a dozen times from calling Connelly. Even after more than a year she still felt the pull, the desire to see him and talk to him, but she knew she couldn't. Not after what had happened the last time. Better not stir anything up again. It wasn't fair to either one of them.

She and Karl had lunch with Carolanne Adama the day before the wedding, and she found out officially what she already knew was probably the case. Lee and Gianne were engaged. She hadn't thought by now that it would bother her as much as it did.

She drank too much at the wedding reception and late that night took one of the groomsmen up to her hotel room. The only thing memorable about the encounter was what he said to her when he was leaving the next morning.

"Just for the record, my name's not Lee."

Some things you don't even try to apologize for.

.

.

.

Decommissioning Day

Lee sat in his Viper on the runway at the Caprica Air Base. He was waiting for clearance to begin his launch procedure. It finally came.

Lee repeated the instructions back to the tower. In fifteen minutes he had cleared the atmosphere and was on his way to the _Galactica_.

Two years and it was now down to a couple of hours before he would see her again. Of course that meant seeing his father as well. Maybe that's why he wasn't in a better mood. And maybe the fact that he had slept very little the night before was contributing to his raw emotions.

Before this day was over he wanted to see Kara and talk to her. He didn't know exactly what he was going to say, but he wanted to find out if they stood a chance. That's all he wanted, to know if they stood a chance. If she talked to him at all, if she didn't tell him right away to get lost or go frak himself, then they stood a chance. And if she mentioned the funeral to him then maybe she was remembering that night, too.

He punched the _Galactica's_ coordinates into his navigation computer, switched on the autopilot and sat back for the ride.

...

On the _Galactica_ several hours later, Kara paced in the brig. Lee was on the ship now. She could almost feel him. What would she do if she saw him? Congratulate him on his engagement? Could she honestly look him in the eye and do that? Nope. She knew she couldn't. She'd have to avoid that subject altogether. What to say to him? She'd just have to wing it. That is if he found his way to the brig, which she doubted he would.

She was a bundle of nerves. Nothing had gotten her in this kind of state in a long time. Damn, she couldn't sit still. She finally dropped to the floor, put her feet on the bunk and started doing pushups, counting them off to herself. One…two…three. She was up to thirty when she heard his voice and felt her heart start pumping even harder.

Lee could hardly believe how much the sight of her was affecting him. It was like they had never been apart. _It's always been about us._ His knees actually felt weak but he was damned if he would let her see how much the sight of her got to him. He placed his arms against the bars of the cell and struggled to control his feelings. His heart was beating so hard she must be able to hear it, how much he wanted her, how much he cared.

He thought of that long-ago day at the Academy when he'd gotten her out of the brig, and he said the first thing that came to mind.

"This seems familiar."

Kara couldn't stop the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. He had made the effort to find her. At least she wasn't hung over this time. She got up slowly and jauntily approached the bars of the cell. He looked so good, so damned good. It was like they'd never been apart. And there was no ring on his finger yet.

She unfolded a small bit of the hope in her heart, leaned closer to the bars and to him.

She was sure, really sure, that if he listened hard enough he could hear her heart beating, telling him just how much she wanted him, just how much she cared.

THE END

.

**Author's Note:** There you have it Fellow Shippers, my take on the Lee/Kara backstory. I wrote this prior to the end of the series when a different backstory became canon for them so much of this story now becomes AU, but at the time I was writing, it seemed like it could plausibly have happened the way I have imagined.

I've tried to weave into my story the little bits of canon that we actually knew about them prior to the drunken episode we were shown in the Daybreak II flashback. The way the characters are played from the Miniseries onward just seemed to scream "we have history," and not just the near-miss that occurred when they first met according to the series.

I always had the impression that Kara had not known Zak very long, having just met him when she became his flight instructor, whereas she and Lee went back much longer. His comment to her near the beginning of the Mini, and one I've quoted above (_This seems familiar)_ would indicate he'd seen her in the brig before, and in KLG1 when he confronts her after she sleeps with Baltar (_Oh, it is just like old times, Kara, like when you got drunk and couldn't keep your hands off the major…). _Certainly that didn't happen while she was dating or engaged to Zak. (I hope!) Also her comment to him just prior to that (_Cause I don't owe you anything…)_ Why would Lee think she owed him anything in regards to sleeping with another man? So despite the fact that the show's creators later said their "first real kiss" occurred in 'Unfinished Business', I prefer to believe their romantic history predates that moment.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all of my wonderful reviewers who gave me such positive feedback and encouragement during the writing of this story. You helped unleash a monster as I have continued writing about the BSG world of Kara and Lee in addition to this story.

For those of you who were not happy with their series ending, please check out my story _Siren's Kiss_ which is AU and begins much earlier in their lives. It is followed by a sequel, _The Torches of Other Worlds_ which expands the story to include the Cylon homeworld. Both stories are now complete.

Jane


End file.
